Harry's Trip to Azkaban
by Decoding Dragon
Summary: Your typical Azkaban Fic with A little twist. Expect a Shift The Ratings.
1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter looked out at the dimming evening sky from the window of his small bedroom at number four, Privet Drive. Three days had passed since his return from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and he was still exhausted. Indeed, what Harry had gone through on the twenty-fourth of June would have been enough to exhaust anyone.

Harry groaned softly as he massaged his right leg. It didn't hurt anymore, but the memory of what had happened kept tricking Harry's mind into thinking the pain was still there. He had suffered a nasty bruise on his shin during the final task of the Triwizard Tournament competition when a giant spider had dropped him awkwardly from a height of twelve feet. He could never have gotten past the spider if it hadn't been for Cedric- _No, not Cedric!_Harry shuddered at the thought.

Cedric Diggory had been co-champion with Harry in the Triwizard Tournament, a contest featuring students from three leading European schools of magic. When Cedric and Harry had knocked out the giant spider and grasped the Cup together, they were magically whisked away to a cemetery where Lord Voldemort, the most evil wizard in the world, had ordered his servant Wormtail to kill Cedric. Harry had been extremely fortunate to escape and bring Cedric's body back to his parents. _Why Cedric?_ Harry thought. _Why did Cedric have to die? It was_me_he wanted._

And this was entirely true. At the age of one, Harry had become the first person ever to survive the dreaded Avada Kedavra curse. Avada Kedavra, the killing curse, the worst of the three Unforgivable Curses of the wizarding world. Harry's mother, Lily Potter, had died to save him after the murder of his father James. Then, when Voldemort attempted to finish off the newly orphaned Harry, the curse rebounded on its source. Voldemort was not killed, but his powers were shattered as he fled to the Albanian forests as a formless shadow. Only on June the twenty-fourth, after the death of Cedric, had Voldemort returned to his proper body, using a potion made with Harry's blood. _No, not that again-_ Harry shivered, trying to shake off that memory too.

_Curse you, Voldemort,_thought Harry. _You killed my parents. You killed Cedric. How many more people are going to have to die on my account?_

And now Voldemort, wherever he was, wanted Harry dead. And this, Harry reflected, had turned out to be the reason why he was now staying at Privet Drive. Voldemort himself had acknowledged, "Not even I can touch him there." As long as he stayed with his relatives, he was safe. Unfortunately, Harry's aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley (not to mention their son Dudley) hated Harry with a passion. They had spent ten years after Harry's parents' deaths making Harry's life miserable, and they still tried to do as much of that as they could manage while Harry was at home on his summer holidays. _Curse you again, Voldemort- if it wasn't for you I wouldn't have to stay in this awful place._

Just then, Harry was stirred from his restless thoughts by a hint of a movement in the swiftly darkening sky. An owl! And that was indeed what it was, bearing a message from someone in the wizarding world. Harry didn't know from whom it might be, but he felt it was bound to be good news. He grinned as the owl approached his open window. It almost felt a relief to smile- he hadn't done much smiling since his return from Hogwarts three days earlier.

The sophisticated-looking brown owl at his windowsill turned out to be from Hogwarts. He quickly opened the envelope and unfolded the parchment within. Written there in green ink was the following message:

_Dear Harry,_

_Greetings. I trust you are enjoying your summer._

_As you know, your safety is a matter of serious concern to many of us in the wizarding world. Accordingly, I am seeking to have you protected by the Fidelius Charm. As you may be aware, this will involve your protection by a Secret-Keeper. As long as the Secret-Keeper guards the knowledge of your whereabouts, your enemies will be kept from finding you even if they walk so close in front of you that you could breathe on them. And so the Secret-Keeper should be someone whom you would trust with your life- for that is exactly what you will be doing._

_I have contacted several qualified candidates- Remus Lupin, Professor McGonagall, Arthur and Molly Weasley, Rubeus Hagrid, and your friend Snuffles- and they all have declined the role of Secret-Keeper, feeling that I should fill that role instead. If you are willing to have me as your Secret-Keeper, please indicate in a reply by this owl. Also, please return the envelope with a hair from your head enclosed. It will be an necessary ingredient in the Fidelius Potion, which is essential for this charm and which is presently being prepared by your good friend and mine, Professor Snape._

_My very best wishes to you in these darkening times._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Albus Dumbledore_

Harry excitedly grabbed a quill from on top of his bed and scribbled _Yes, please_at the bottom of the parchment Dumbledore had sent, plucked a few strands of his messy black hair, slipped them into the envelope, sealed it, and gave it back to the school owl, saying, "Back to Professor Dumbledore!" The owl obediently launched itself into the air and disappeared back into the night sky, heading north toward Hogwarts.

_Wow,_ thought Harry. _Dumbledore's going to be my Secret Keeper! _ Unable even to think of going to sleep, he kept going over in his mind the contents of the letter from Dumbledore, trying to figure out what the implications might be. Soon an even happier thought struck his mind. The reason for his being stuck at Privet Drive was because he was safe from Voldemort and his Death Eaters there. But if Dumbledore was his Secret Keeper, then he had no such limitations. He could go to the Burrow in Ottery St. Catchpole, home of his best friend Ron Weasley and the rest of Ron's family. Or, perhaps even better, he could stay with his godfather, Sirius Black. He could go freely to Diagon Alley, the secluded street in London that was full of the finest collection of shops that wizarding England had to offer. The world was open to Harry like it had never been before. He only needed to hold on for a little bit longer, while Professor Snape brewed the Fidelius potion.

_Professor Snape_. Harry grinned wryly at the phrase "your good friend and mine." He supposed that it made sense that Snape would be the one to do it- he did have a reputation as one of the best potion brewers around. Unfortunately, he also happened to be one of Harry's worst enemies at Hogwarts, along with his favorite student, Draco Malfoy. Snape had been a student at Hogwarts along with Harry's father, James Potter, and long held a grudge against James and his friends Sirius and Remus. It was Snape who had revealed that Remus Lupin was a werewolf at the end of Harry's third year, resulting in Lupin's immediate resignation from the Hogwarts faculty. And this grudge had carried over to Harry as well: Snape had made Potions class a weekly misery for Harry from the beginning of his first year.

And then, a little more than a month ago, Harry had found out something new about Snape. Professor Snape had at one time been a Death Eater, one of the Dark Lord's most loyal followers. But, according to Professor Dumbledore, Snape had "rejoined our side before Voldemort's downfall and turned spy for us, at great personal risk." Dumbledore had refused, however, to tell Harry what made him so confident that Snape had really changed sides.

_What if Snape isn't really on our side?_, Harry worried. _What if he does the potion wrong on purpose, just to spite me and let me get killed by Voldemort?_ It occurred to him that he was being forced to trust not only Professor Dumbledore with his life, but Professor Snape also. The Dumbledore part was easy; trusting Snape was rather more difficult. He was still excited about getting to do the Fidelius charm, but having Snape involved added a degree of uneasiness to the excitement.

Sometime around midnight, Harry's mind finally calmed down enough to let him fall asleep.

A bright green fire roared in the fireplace of the house, as a tall wizard with slanted red eyes and a flat snakelike face stood before the fire like a medieval monarch holding court, amid the circle of his followers. The others in the circle were all wearing hooded robes and masks that somewhat resembled their Master's face. A rather short wizard was groveling on the floor before his leader, saying, "Master, I would be honored... if it should be your desire..."

"Silence", interrupted the tall wizard's unnaturally cold, high-pitched voice. "Have you forgotten our timetable, Wormtail? We will release the Dementors when the time is right, and not a moment sooner! Is that understood?"

"Yes... Yes, Master", whimpered Wormtail.

"Very well. Don't try to get creative on me, Wormtail, your 'creativity' has spoiled more than one of my plans before this. And I think you won't need me to tell you what awaits you should I deem you to need a reminder about the wisdom of airing your worthless ideas before me..."

"No... no, Master... I quite understand..."

"Good," cackled the Master. "Even your dense little brain should be able to process that particular point, I should hope. And now, my dear Death Eaters, we have one further order of business... as soon as our favorite 'spy's' ever-so-tight schedule should permit him to grace us with his honorable presence... Ah, here he is now."

Another masked wizard had suddenly appeared in the room. A lock of long, greasy black hair was visible behind his mask.

"And what news have we from Saint Dumbledore, that most magnificent of Muggle-lovers? I must confess that I have been disappointed with the extent of the information you have thus far been able to provide... And I do prize loyalty among my followers, as you no doubt recall, and I would hate to see so accomplished a servant suffer the penalty of disloyalty at the hands of Lord Voldemort..."

"Master," replied the newly-arrived wizard, "Dumbledore has formulated his plan for the Potter boy." He spoke the name Potter with especial distaste. "He plans to allow young Potter to escape the unpleasant confinement imposed by his Muggle relations before the summer is over."

"Oh, does he, now?" said Voldemort, sounding almost impressed. "And how does our precious Headmaster intend to keep young Potter safeguarded from the threat of Lord Voldemort without the security provided by the ancient magic which protects him at his relations' home?"

"With the Fidelius Charm, of course," replied the wizard's silky voice. "And your Lordship will no doubt have guessed whom Dumbledore trusts to prepare the particular potion on which this charm depends."

Lord Voldemort laughed, a high, joyless laughter which caused even the Death Eaters (who of course had heard their Master's laughter many times previously) to feel as though the blood were about to freeze in their veins.

"Of course," added the Death Eater with a sigh, "I fear that I may not be quite the potion-brewer that our dear Headmaster esteems me to be... One small slip, and the potion will be worthless..."

The Master laughed again, and then stopped. "Severus! I would like to make sure of your loyalty. Tell me plainly and without your crafty wordsmithing: What shall be the result of this Fidelius Potion, my friend? Do not lie to Lord Voldemort. He knows. He always knows."

"Harry Potter shall be delivered into your hands, my Lord."

"Ah, yes! Hatred for all things Potter! That's what I like to see. But, dear Severus, just in case your loyalty should ever be tempted to waver, let me remind you..."

"No, my Lord!" interrupted another Death Eater, with a voice as silky as Severus' but with greater urgency. "Severus has remained loyal to us throughout, my son is in his house at Hogwarts..."

"Lucius!" shouted Lord Voldemort, and then spoke again more quietly. "Well, now, perhaps I should just step down then. Take your place at the fireside, Lucius, you would make _so_ much better a Dark Lord than I. You, who renounced me for thirteen long years, are _so_ much better qualified to judge loyalty than Lord Voldemort. Don't you think so?"

"No, my Lord... I never intended..."

"Very well, I should hope not indeed. Then let's get back to business, shall we? As I was saying, my dear Severus, let me remind you that should your loyalty waver, a curse even more, shall we say, _unforgivable_ than this one awaits you." He pointed his wand at the Death Eater spy. _"Crucio!"_And the spy rolled on the ground, screaming in pain.

Harry sat bolt upright in bed as the nightmare faded. The scar on his forehead was hurting terribly. _The scar-something in the dream-Voldemort! Dumbledore will want to know about this,_ he thought. _I've got to remember it-what was it? A plan-some plan of Dumbledore's-that was it, the potion!_ He scrambled to grab a parchment and quill to start writing when the sound heavy footfalls in the hall told him that he had inadvertently awakened his Uncle Vernon. _Oh, no..._

"What's all the yelling about?!" Uncle Vernon demanded.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Vernon", replied Harry. "A bad dream... and my head hurts..."

"So, which is it? A nightmare, or a headache? Can't keep your story straight, can you, boy? Trying to disturb your Aunt Petunia's sleep again, are you? This better not happen again, or I'll give your head a reason to hurt, see if I don't."

Harry wasn't sure if Uncle Vernon meant the threat literally, but he couldn't rule out the possibility. As arguing the point would have done him no good_-_he knew this from long experience_-_he rolled back under the covers and groaned, "All right." Uncle Vernon watched him for an uncomfortable minute, and then went back to bed, apparently satisfied that Harry was going back to sleep.

Harry waited a minute or two after he heard Uncle Vernon's bedroom door close, and then stealthily got back up and grabbed a parchment. _What was the dream about again? Voldemort, of course... and something about a plan... oh, bother, I can't remember what the plan was._ He felt dead tired, and the pain from his scar didn't help matters any. He had almost given up trying to remember when he glanced at the window and remembered the previous night's owl from Hogwarts that had brought him the message about the Fidelius Potion. _That's it... the potion... Voldemort was finding out about the potion... but how? Snape? Yeah, it was Snape! Snape told Voldemort about the potion! And... what did he tell him? Was he going to sabotage the potion? I think he was... Did Voldemort do the Cruciatus Curse on anyone this time? I think so... I think it was Snape... but why would he, if Snape was going to make it so the potion didn't work? It all made sense at the time... was it just an ordinary dream that doesn't make sense after you wake up? No, it had to be real, it seemed just like the one in Divination class this spring..._

He took a deep breath, and began to write.

_Dear Professor Dumbledore,_

_I just had a dream about Voldemort. I woke up with my scar hurting. Professor Snape was talking to Voldemort about the potion. I think he agreed to sabotage the potion so the Fidelius Charm wouldn't work. It seems like Voldemort was doing the Cruciatus Curse on him at the end, too, but that doesn't make sense. I'm sorry I can't tell you more, it's hard to remember, and my Uncle Vernon came in and yelled at me before I could write anything down._

He wanted to ask Dumbledore why he was so sure that Snape was on their side, but he had asked that before and been told, in effect, that that was none of his business. So he decided to leave that one alone, and simply added,

_I hope this all works out. Thanks again._

_Harry_

Hedwig, his snowy white owl, was of course a nocturnal creature and was quite happy to see her master keeping proper hours for once. She eagerly accepted the letter once Harry had sealed it. "To Professor Dumbledore!" he whispered as he opened the window for her. Hedwig nibbled his ear affectionately and soared off into the night sky.

Harry was awakened far too early the next morning by the sound of Aunt Petunia's shrill voice calling through his bedroom door: "Harry! Are you awake yet?!" _Of course I'm awake_now_, you idiot,_ he thought (but restrained himself from saying out loud).

"Yeah... I'm awake", he droned wearily.

"Well, then, let's get a move on! Time to set the table for breakfast!"

Harry grudgingly set out the Dursleys' plates and silverware, wondering why they couldn't do such a simple chore themselves. At least he didn't have to cook, though. In past years the Dursleys had often made Harry do their cooking for them, but after the previous summer's distressing incident involving a magical toffee produced by Ron's twin brothers Fred and George, they had apparently decided against allowing anyone magical to be involved in the preparation of food. They seemed rather superstitious about it, in fact. Harry didn't feel he'd gotten the full story quite yet, but from the parts he could piece together it seemed that Dudley had refused to eat anything for about two weeks after having his tongue restored to normal (it had swollen to a length of over four feet). It wasn't clear just how much time Dudley had spent in hospital, although he knew that Dudley had apparently fainted from exhaustion (Aunt Petunia talked about that part fairly often). In any case, the experience had certainly seemed to cure Dudley of his overeating, and he was looking a bit slimmer. He looked more shrunken than fit and trim, but it was still an improvement. Harry had suggested that perhaps the Dursleys might write Fred and George a thank-you note, but this suggestion was not well received.

Harry spent the whole morning and most of the afternoon doing whatever chores Aunt Petunia could think up. Anything not involving food preparation seemed to be fair game. Much of it seemed unnecessary, too. He agreed that their lawn needed to be mowed from time to time, but three times a week seemed a bit much.

"All right, I'm done," he said on his way in the house late that afternoon, not daring to look directly at Aunt Petunia. After a few seconds of silence, she snapped, "Took you long enough". Harry knew Aunt Petunia well enough to conclude with relief that she had tried to think of more chores and failed, and that he could come and rest inside. As he hadn't slept well the previous night, he was glad of the opportunity of a nap before dinner.

But exhausted though he was, he couldn't drop off to sleep.

He started to think about Cho Chang, a very pretty girl who played Seeker for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. But then-no, he couldn't think about Cho, not that way, not anymore. She had been the girlfriend of Cedric Diggory before he was killed-_And if I hadn't told Cedric to take the Cup with me-no, don't start that again,_ he told himself. But in any case, he found that could no longer imagine Cho smiling at him after some great triumph-he could only see her as she had been at the end of the school year, with a background of the Great Hall decorated in black, mourning the loss of Cedric, crying as if the world would end. And, he supposed, it must have seemed to her as though the world was indeed ending. She and Cedric had been a really nice couple; they had belonged together. Harry wondered how he could have been so stupid not to see it at the time. And now it's all over, all because I told Cedric to-_no, don't even go there._

And yet-Harry felt a strange inexpressible longing. Now that he couldn't think that way about Cho anymore, he felt that he had somehow lost something in the process. It was strange. For the whole first thirteen and a half years of his life, up to the first time he had played against Cho in a Quidditch match, it would never have occurred to him to want a girl to look at him the way Cho had looked at Cedric last year. Now he was almost fifteen, and still had never had a girlfriend, and once again there wasn't any girl that he could even hope for that way-but now it somehow felt terribly like he was missing something.

On one hand, he did feel a kind of freedom, as if his liking for Cho had been a heavy weight about his neck for the past year which had now been removed. But on the other, he also felt a strange loneliness, a new kind that he had never felt before, and which somehow seemed deeper than any loneliness he had felt before. He supposed it was stupid to feel like this-_At least I've got friends now, which before Hogwarts I didn't used to._But the feeling didn't go away. He wished he knew how to handle feelings like this. It seemed like there ought to be somebody... somebody... somebody special; but there wasn't.

He found himself almost involuntarily ticking off the names of all the girls he knew._Hermione? No, she's just a friend, I could never think of her that way. Ginny? She's Ron's little sister, hate to think what Ron would say if I started liking her. Lavender or Parvati? No thanks..._ He stopped himself. _How ridiculous to be thinking about girls that way_. If he were ever going to have a girlfriend, he wanted it to be because he really liked that person and she really liked him, the way Cho and Cedric had liked each other, not because there was some kind of vacancy that needed to be filled, like when people applied for jobs to work for Uncle Vernon at the Grunnings drill factory.

_But maybe there's some really nice girl that I just haven't met yet_, his mind insisted_._Certainly none of the Slytherins would do-the thought of Pansy or Millicent in that context made him gag. But he didn't know the Hufflepuffs very well, and the Ravenclaws even less-one of them, maybe? Maybe that one girl from Hufflepuff with the dark hair and haunted-looking eyes-Susan, was that her name? She might be interesting, she seemed like there was some mystery about her that Harry didn't know. Or maybe someday he'd meet a girl from a foreign school? All the Beauxbatons girls he had met last year were three or four years older than he, and Durmstrang hadn't brought any girls at all. But that kind of situation might be tough, because they wouldn't speak each other's languages. Was there a wizard school in America, perhaps? Harry remembered Dean and Seamus talking (a bit wolfishly) about a really beautiful and talented American girl named Mary Sue who was reportedly going to be transferring to Hogwarts; but that sounded like a pretty far-fetched rumor to Harry. He doubted such a person even existed, or if she did the stories probably weren't even half true.

Again Harry forced himself to stop. _There I go again. Why am I getting like this?_He sighed. _If things won't work out with the girls I_do_know, what makes me think that some_new_girl is going to come around the corner and solve all my problems? I've just got to face the facts,_he thought gloomily. _I'm just a short skinny kid with glasses and an ugly scar. Not much here that a girl could want. Maybe I'll just end up going through life on my own._ The strange lonely feeling was stronger now than ever before.

Harry wished there were somebody that he could talk to about these things. Ron? No, Ron was just as confused about girls as he was, maybe even more so. Ron had obviously been very jealous when Hermione had gone to the Yule Ball with Viktor Krum the previous year. But afterwards, when Hermione had told Ron, "Next time, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort", Ron had amazingly failed to cotton on.

No, Harry needed somebody he could talk to like a father. He had never known his real father. Uncle Vernon obviously would be no help. _Sirius,_he suddenly realized,_I should write to Sirius!_That was what a godfather was for, of course, to take the place of a father should anything happen. And he was sure Sirius would be happy to help, if only Harry could think of the right way to ask the question.

But how to ask the question was the difficulty. Harry got out a parchment and began:

_Dear Sirius,_

_Did you ever like a girl?_

_No, that's stupid,_ thought Harry. He tried another approach:

_Dear Sirius,_

_How did my Mum and Dad get together? You know, like, as boyfriend and girlfriend? How does that work, anyway?_

_Even stupider,_thought Harry, reaching for the stack of parchment once again.

About three crumpled pieces of parchment later, and after the very rude interruption of having to eat dinner with the Dursleys, he finally got through a complete version of what he wanted to say:

_Dear Sirius,_

_Can you help me understand girls? I mean, how to deal with them as girls, that is? If my dad was here I'd be asking him of course, but since he's not I guess my godfather will be the next best thing._

_It's like this: There's one girl that I liked, Cho Chang, but she liked another guy, and that was Cedric Diggory, and now that Cedric's dead I'm not sure that I like her any more, and besides it would be kind of like insulting Cedric to go out with his girlfriend after he's dead._

_There's another girl that seems like she likes me, but that's Ron's little sister Ginny. She's a really nice girl, and I wouldn't want to hurt her or anything, but I've never really felt like that about her, and even if I did it would be just too weird to go out with my best friend's little sister. She really acted weird around me in her first year, but now she seems more normal, so maybe she doesn't like me that way any more anyway. She went to the Yule Ball with Neville Longbottom last year, and so maybe she likes him now. After what happened with Neville's parents, it would be really nice for him to have a good girlfriend like Ginny._

_And everybody thinks Hermione is my girlfriend, but she's not, we're just friends. If anything, she and Ron might like each other, but don't tell them I said that. Last year at the Yule Ball Ron got really mad when Hermione came with Victor Krum, and Hermione gets mad when other girls pay attention to Ron too._

_The girl I went to the ball with was Parvati Patil, from Gryffindor in my year, but there's nothing going on there. It was kind of bad, I suppose I should have danced with her more at the ball, she was kind of unhappy with me for a while afterwards. But I was kind of forced into the situation, since I was a school champion I had to take somebody. Nice of her to go with me at all, I guess._

_I hope we don't have another Ball or anything like that-well, maybe-no, I don't know what I hope. But if we do I suppose I ought to be ready for it and not be such a total prat as I was last year._

_I suppose this has been a totally stupid letter, but if you can say anything to help I'd really appreciate it._

_Hope whatever you're doing this summer is going okay. I got an owl yesterday about the plan for keeping me safe-sounds great! Tell Professor Lupin I said hi._

_Harry_

Harry hid the letter in his trunk, to be sent to Sirius once Hedwig returned from her delivery to Dumbledore, and then worked until bedtime on his essay for History of Magic, "Political and Social Factors Related to the Goblin-Dwarf Alliance of 1846."

The next day, he was awakened at sunrise by an owl tapping on his window. _Hedwig!_, he thought. And so it was.

Hedwig had brought another letter from Professor Dumbledore, but it wasn't as encouraging as Harry might have hoped. Indeed, what Dumbledore had to say made Harry feel a bit uncomfortable:

_Dear Harry,_

_Thank you very much for your reply to my owl of yesterday. Our plans are going forward as I had described them._

_I appreciate also your information about your dream of last night. I spoke with Professor Snape after receiving your owl, and he confirmed that everything happened as you saw it. It seems that your connection with Lord Voldemort allows you to see his doings in your dreams. Professor Trelawney will be most impressed-unless perhaps you'd rather I restrain myself from telling her? Ah, very well, I suppose not. It would have been fun, I admit._

_As for Professor Snape: His is the most difficult role in the newly-revived conflict with Lord Voldemort, more difficult than yours or even mine. As I have said before, it is essential that those of us who know the truth and are willing to act on it trust one another. I am aware of the personal animosities that have existed between you and the Potions Master over the years, but the need to stand together against Voldemort is far more important than whatever petty conflicts may exist among ourselves. Therefore I must insist once again: Trust Professor Snape, Harry._

_And please do continue to give me any information you may have about Lord Voldemort's doings. Any information may make a difference. Again I thank you._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Albus Dumbledore_

Receiving even a gentle rebuke from Dumbledore was always painful to Harry, and so when he went downstairs to breakfast, it was with an empty feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger. _He still hasn't told me,_ Harry thought, _why is he so sure that Snape is on our side?_

After feeding Hedwig and sending her off to Sirius, another long day of chores lay ahead for Harry. This time they kept him busy all the way up to dinner, and it was only after dinner that he had a chance to think again. This time, he forced himself to think of the more pleasant times he had had at Hogwarts the previous year. For there had been plenty of good things last year as well: Draco Malfoy, Harry's worst enemy at Hogwarts, getting transformed into a white ferret and bounced around the corridor; his victory over the Hungarian Horntail in the First Task of the Tournament; getting to know the foreign schools' Champions, Viktor Krum and Fleur Delacour, both of whom had been very nice to Harry; and the time spent with his two best friends, Ron and Hermione. Harry almost laughed-the closest he had come to laughing in a long time-when he remembered how the three of them, along with Ron's brothers Fred and George, had left Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle on the floor of the Hogwarts Express, knocked out by a slew of hexes, after Malfoy had boasted about the Dark Lord's return and insulted the memory of Cedric.

_Yeah,_Harry thought with only a slight touch of grimness, _last year wasn't all bad-_

Suddenly, from downstairs, he heard a knock at the door. He sat silently, and a minute later Uncle Vernon's voice came up the staircase. "Boy!" he yelled at Harry with what seemed to be a mixture of anger and fear. In a harsh whisper he said to Harry, "There's a man at the door... and he's one of _your_ kind."

_Sirius!_ Harry eagerly leaped down the stairs, taking them three at a time, expecting that his godfather had come to visit.

But he was wrong. There was indeed a wizard at the door, but it was not one that Harry recognized. He flashed a Ministry of Magic badge at Harry as he spoke.

"Harry James Potter", came his voice in a calm but threatening tone, "My name is Brundage Avery from the department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Harry's mind raced... _Avery! I know that name! He's a Death Eater! He's one of Voldemort's!_

"It is my duty", Avery continued, "to arrest you for the assault and battery of Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle... and for the murder of Cedric Diggory... and for the aid and abettance of a convicted mass murderer, Sirius Black." At the mention of Sirius, Avery drew out of his cloak a letter that Harry recognized as the one he had sent to Sirius.

Suddenly stricken with fear, Harry's mind madly scrambled to find what to do next. At first he wanted to make a mad grab for the parchment, but Avery anticipated this move and brandished his wand at Harry. Harry then made as if to turn around and run back into the house, but Uncle Vernon, looking suddenly gleeful at this turn of events, blocked the hallway, standing with his arms crossed and saying, "They've got you now, boy."

Finally, Harry's nerve broke entirely and he made a run for it. Strangely, Avery stood out of the way with a smug grin on his face. Why was Avery letting him run away? But Harry didn't care-he was pelting down the driveway toward the street, thinking of nothing other than getting away from there any way he could. And then, in an instant, he heard in his memory the evil voice of Lord Voldemort telling Avery and the other Death Eaters, _Dumbledore invoked an ancient magic, to ensure the boy's protection as long as he is in his relations' care. Not even I can touch him there..._

_That's what they're doing! They want me to run away,_Harry realized suddenly and tried to put on the brakes. But it was too late. As his right foot touched the pavement of Privet Drive, he heard Avery's voice shouting "Stupefy!". The last thing he felt was himself falling down toward the pavement.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry woke up on a floor of hard, cold concrete. He must have fallen on his left side- his left wrist seemed to be sprained, his knee on that side hurt pretty badly also, and it felt like the left side of his face was scraped all the way up to his forehead. Just raising his arm to feel his face hurt. How had he gotten himself in here? He didn't remember- oh, yes, that was it. _The Death Eater from the Ministry, Avery. He arrested me. They got my letter to Sirius. They said I killed Cedric._A surge of righteous indignation welled up with in Harry, and was then cut off as he remembered the other charge against him. _Oh, yeah, and the attack on Malfoy and his buddies. We really did do that._

The feeling of indignation was replaced by one of frustration. _But they don't_arrest_people for that, it's just kid stuff. We've attacked each other at school before, and all that's happened is we've gotten detention and lost house points and stuff. How was I supposed to know they'd arrest us? And I was provoked too. Malfoy was insulting Ron and Hermione- and Cedric._At the thought of Cedric, the wave of tormented guilt within him swelled up and overwhelmed his mind's ability to frame his thoughts in words. It was all so unfair; and yet he still felt guilty about it too.

Then the realization hit him that he hadn't been the only one to attack Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. _What about Ron and Hermione? Have they been arrested too? Wouldn't put it past Malfoy to have his dad get all three of us. And maybe Fred and George too? But no- maybe they've just gone after me. I'm the one Voldemort wants. This is all just a trick to get me someplace where Voldemort can attack me and finish me off._

_Hey, wait a minute. How did they get the letter? THEY DIDN'T GET SIRIUS, DID THEY?!_This thought burned Harry's insides even worse than the thought of Cedric. If Sirius was caught, he would be given the Dementor's Kiss, and left to exist as an empty body without a soul. The thought of his godfather suffering such a fate was more than Harry felt he could handle. His eyes stung, and his throat choked up so that he could hardly breathe.

He wondered how they could have gotten to Sirius. Did they follow Hedwig? He remembered now that last year Sirius had asked him not to send Hedwig to him, as a white owl always returning to the same place would attract too much attention. _I shouldn't have sent Hedwig to Sirius. And I shouldn't have attacked Malfoy, and I shouldn't... shouldn't... shouldn't have told Cedric to take the Cup with me._Guilty misery overwhelmed him again to the point where he couldn't think coherently. For a couple minutes he stared at the hard concrete floor, trying to collect his thoughts.

_Hey, wait a minute... where am I?_Harry wiped the still-stinging tears out of his eyes as he looked up at the wall opposite him. Grey concrete. He looked up at the ceiling. More grey concrete. Apparently he was in sort of prison cell. _Am I in Azkaban?_But no; if this were Azkaban, he would have felt the Dementors' presence by now. Perhaps he was somewhere at the Ministry of Magic in London.

He looked to his left- and realized that he was not alone in the cell. Standing there, as if waiting for him to speak, was a tall, aged wizard with long white hair and a beard. His blue eyes were not twinkling.

"Well, Harry, it seems that we have some things to discuss," said Albus Dumbledore.

Unnerved by the sight of his headmaster in his cell with him, Harry blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. "Professor! You're not- you're not a prisoner here too, are you?!"

The faintest hint of amusement crossed Dumbledore's face. "No, Harry, I'm not." He paused a moment. "I am here to advise you concerning your legal defense. I was able to persuade Minister Fudge to grant you a trial. The situation is very troublesome, I'm afraid. Two weeks ago Lucius Malfoy was appointed Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He very nearly arranged for you to be shipped directly to Azkaban, but Cornelius decided that sending you there without a trial would harm the Ministry's reputation even more than has already been the case. You will undergo trial in two days' time."

"Yes, sir," Harry intoned blankly without meeting Dumbledore's eyes. "By the way, where are we?"

"We are in one of the Magical Law Enforcement department's holding cells. You may recall the courtroom scenes that you observed in my office before the Third Task. The courtroom that you saw is in this building. You will be tried in it. I believe that you have been duly informed of the crimes of which you are accused."

"Yes, sir."

"The foremost charge is that of Cedric's murder." A brief spark of anger flared up in Dumbledore's voice. "It is the murder charge that will give them authority to send you to Azkaban. And you see the difficulty that is upon us there. Who murdered Cedric, Harry?"

"Voldemort. Well, really, Wormtail, on Voldemort's orders."

"And therefore your entire defense, Harry, rests on the existence of two men, both presumed dead, or as good as dead, for thirteen years, both of whom the Ministry is unwilling to admit may still be alive."

Harry nodded.

"The second charge is that of aiding and abetting a convicted murderer, Sirius Black. Of this-" (and here Dumbledore's speech betrayed the faintest hint of mirth, although it disappeared quickly) "of this I suppose that I am is guilty as you are. Sirius is not a murderer, but he is a _convicted_murderer, and that is all that matters to the Ministry. Fudge will consider no other possibility, and Lucius Malfoy, who of course does know the truth, will see to it that Fudge continues to consider no other possibility.

"And so you can imagine what a delight it was for Lucius and the other Death Eaters when one of their number intercepted your owl. No, they didn't catch Sirius himself," (Harry breathed a sigh of relief) "but they did catch your owl on her way to Sirius. My best guess is that a high-powered broom and an invisibility cloak were involved. Arthur Weasley was able to retrieve your owl, and since Hagrid is out of the country on a special assignment, his predecessor, Professor Kettleburn, has been nursing her back to health. He is doing an excellent job with her."

Harry nodded. He still was not meeting Dumbledore's eyes. He knew what was coming next.

"But the third charge is somewhat different. Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger have also been arrested" (Harry's stomach sank to the bottom of his insides) "and the three of you stand accused of attacking young Draco Malfoy and his friends."

There was a deadly pause.

"Tell me, Harry, did you do this?"

Harry nodded. More silence.

"Tell me, Harry. Why did you do this?"

Harry paused to collect his thoughts. At the moment he couldn't actually remember why he had done it, only that it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Finally the memory came back.

"He was bragging about Voldemort being back. He told me I had chosen the wrong friends, that they'd be the first to go. Then he said, 'No, second- Diggory was the first.' " Harry paused. "And then I guess we all just kind of lost it." He was careful not to mention Fred and George's involvement in the attack, as they had apparently managed to escape detection.

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully. Harry still was not meeting his eyes.

"Certainly I share your sentiments, Harry." Dumbledore thought for a moment. "But we are in a war, and in a war right feelings are not enough. Right actions are necessary as well. And I hope that you have realized that by your actions you have allowed the enemies of the truth- both those who are willful liars and those who are willfully ignorant- the opportunity to score their greatest triumph since Lord Voldemort's return to his body."

Harry nodded glumly, staring at the floor. There was another long silence.

"And now, Harry, we must plan our response to these charges."

Harry's gaze remained fixed downward. He didn't feel particularly interested in responding to anyone's charges. It all seemed too much of a lost cause for him to care.

"Harry?"

Harry continued staring at the floor.

"Harry," said Dumbledore. "Before we take this discussion any further, there is someone whom I think you should meet." He reached into his cloak, and from somewhere- it didn't seem like there was enough room for it- he produced an owl cage. Slumped at the bottom of it was a morose-looking lump of white feathers.

"Hedwig!" said Harry, rushing over to her. But Hedwig looked at him from under her wing and then resolutely looked away.

"Hedwig, what happened?" pleaded Harry. Hedwig gave no response. Harry tried prodding her for a while, but without result.

"Harry, why do you think your owl won't look at you?" asked Dumbledore.

"I guess because she's embarrassed that she got caught."

"And do you think that she is making herself any happier by not responding to you?"

Harry thought for a moment. Then he realized Dumbledore's point. Slowly, painfully, he turned to look into the piercing gaze of Dumbledore's ice-blue eyes.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Very well then, Harry, we can continue. And I'm sure your owl will come around soon enough." And with that, the twinkle returned to Professor Dumbledore's eyes, and Harry began to feel that perhaps there was hope after all.

"Harry, we must be careful. I must not stay here long. Let me explain how your trial will function. As you may recall from your visit to my Pensieve a couple of months ago, there are no defense attorneys in wizarding courts. I will be present in the audience and will speak up if necessary, but I will have no official capacity and the court will not be compelled to recognize me. You will have the opportunity to speak in your own defense. But you must be very cautious, as Lucius Malfoy can easily turn an ill-chosen word against you.

"Mr. Malfoy will be prosecuting attorney on behalf of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I believe that he is attempting to stack the jury with his allies. Even Barty Crouch, aggressive though he was in his prosecutions, never stooped to that level; there was too much weight of wizarding law against it for him to consider the possibility. But Lucius, I'm afraid, has no such scruples.

"You will be facing testimony from several witnesses. I am sorry to say that young Draco Malfoy will be testifying as to your attack on him on the train. He is also likely to testify as to your alleged instability, as we saw in the Rita Skeeter article before the Third Task. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle will join him in this testimony. Your letter to Sirius will be presented to the court. I do not know whom they will have giving evidence as to your alleged murder of Cedric. It may be Minister Fudge himself."

This was too much. "But Professor," Harry interrupted, "Mr. Fudge doesn't really believe I murdered Cedric, does he?"

Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "The word _believe_ can mean many things. I do not, and indeed cannot, know what the Minister believes, deep down in his soul. At the time of the Third Task, he seemed to agree that young Crouch had been responsible, even if he refused to acknowledge that Voldemort had indeed returned. But Lucius has been playing on the Minister's weakness. The fact is that young Crouch, in the form of Alastor Moody, was seen on the grounds at Hogwarts at the time of Cedric's murder, and you of course were not. Lucius has forced the Minister into a position where he must believe either that you murdered Cedric or that Voldemort has been restored; and he knows as well as you and I that the Minister will choose to believe anything rather than that Voldemort has returned."

This took Harry's breath away. Kindly, bumbling old Minister Fudge would actually consider him a murderer? The thought was preposterous. But then again, maybe it wasn't so strange after all. He remembered that Fudge already considered him mentally unstable. From there it was only a short step to considering him capable of murder. Harry looked at Dumbledore in horror, saying nothing.

"But let us return to the subject. Time is short," Dumbledore continued. "It is my suspicion that there will also be several witnesses against your character. I have given permission for Professor Snape to testify against you."

"What...? Why...?" Harry didn't understand. What was going on here?

"It is necessary that he do so," Dumbledore explained, "because the failure to do so would jeopardize his position with Voldemort, and would cut off our side from our best source of information in this war. Some things, Harry, are more important than any of our individual lives. I do not believe anything he says will turn the tide against you. Indeed, I do not believe that he could if he chose to; remember, Harry, Professor Snape is under life-debt to the memory of your father. But I say this to warn you, and to prepare you to deal with the feelings you will no doubt experience during his testimony.

"Based on information from Professor Snape, as well as from Lucius Malfoy's conduct of the case thus far, it is my expectation that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement will seek to have you sent to Azkaban. I do not know for how long; that will depend on the timing of when Voldemort plans to release the Dementors. A mere few weeks may well be enough for his purposes.

"If you are sent there, we will make every effort to protect you there. But I cannot guarantee your safety, and regardless of what happens, this is a significant setback for our side.

"And now I must leave soon. Do you have any questions, Harry?"

"Professor... What about Ron and Hermione? Will they be sent to Azkaban too?"

"I do not know. It is less likely, since they are charged only with assault and not murder. My guess is that Lucius is allowing his son a bit of vengeance in their case, but I do not know how far it will be taken."

"And, Professor... What about the Fidelius Charm that was supposed to protect me?"

"Unfortunately, Harry, it will be three more weeks before the Fidelius Potion is ready. Until then, you are in a position of extreme vulnerability."

Suddenly their conversation was disturbed by the noise of a key turning in the lock of Harry's cell. An unpleasant-looking dwarf opened the door leered at Harry as he brought in a hunk of dry bread and a stone jug of water. Harry turned to his left in fright- but Dumbledore was nowhere to be seen. "A bit jumpy, now, are we?" laughed the Ministry dwarf, and left.

_Where is Dumbledore?_ wondered Harry. His question was answered as a parchment slid under the door. It read:

_Goodbye, Harry._-_-A.D._

_Hey, wait a minute,_thought Harry. _What was that about? The Ministry knew Dumbledore was here, didn't they?_

_But wait- maybe they didn't._Would Dumbledore have come to talk with him without Ministry permission? _Yeah,_Harry realized, _maybe he would have. What was that he said to Fudge after Voldemort came back? "I shall act as I see fit?" If Fudge and the Ministry didn't want him to see me, that probably wouldn't stop him._

It was only at this point that Harry realized that he didn't really understand how Dumbledore felt about breaking rules. He remembered in his first year how it had seemed like Dumbledore had made sure that he, Ron, and Hermione had had just enough information to stop Voldemort from stealing the Philosopher's Stone, even though this involved breaking several school rules in the process. Then the next year, when Harry and Ron had illegally flown to school in Ron's father's flying car, Dumbledore had threatened to expel them if they continued to break rules-only to eat his words when they had broken every rule in the book to save Ginny from Voldemort in the Chamber of Secrets. Likewise the year after that, Dumbledore had very deliberately provided Harry and Hermione with a plan to save Sirius Black, even though this involved breaking one of the most serious laws known to wizardkind- and yet he had done this without actually telling them to do so.

_It seems like Dumbledore believes it's okay to break rules, or even laws, when it's for a good purpose; it's just not okay to get caught. Or is that right?_Somehow this almost seemed to capture Dumbledore's views on the subject, but not quite. Harry didn't quite think that it was "getting caught" that made the difference, even if it was for a good cause; but he wasn't sure what it was. In any case, Dumbledore seemed to have thought it was all right to come and talk to Harry without Ministry permission; but he wasn't about to let the Ministry find out about it. The rest of it Harry would have to figure out some other time. He wished he could ask Dumbledore about this, but he suspected that this would be yet another of those questions to which the Headmaster would be unwilling to give a straight answer.

The rest of the day passed slowly. Harry wanted to try to figure out what to say at the trial the next day. But he couldn't seem to make his mind focus. His thoughts kept drifting aimlessly. He wondered where Ron and Hermione were being held, and what they were thinking. Hermione, he supposed, was probably in a bit of a panic. She had always made a point of doing things "right," following all the rules and staying out of trouble. She would be desperate for a wizarding law book (the heftier the better) to tell her how to get out of trouble; but nobody was likely to have brought her one, and unless she had memorized _A Thousand And One Important Precedents in Wizarding Law_without him and Ron knowing about it, she'd be pretty much helpless. Meanwhile, Ron seemed likely to be muttering angrily under his breath about the situation, but wouldn't take it quite as hard and seriously as Hermione would. Or would he? Nothing like this had happened to them before; you couldn't really tell how somebody would react to it until it happened.

Eventually the grey concrete of his cell walls faded to black. Harry wasn't quite sure how this work; he suspected that the cell must have been charmed to maintain the same level of light as the outside world, kind of like a cheap imitation of the Great Hall at Hogwarts. In any case, Harry supposed that it was time to sleep now. The concrete floor was cold and hard, and his troubled mind wasn't helping either; but finally he managed to drop off to sleep.

The next day dawned slowly. Harry still couldn't think coherently about his trial. Dumbledore's information had been helpful- at least now he had some idea of what was coming- but he was still having trouble making his mind settle down and plan how he was going to defend himself.

_Okay, I've got to figure this out,_he finally made himself think around mid-morning (or so he guessed it to be). _What am I going to have to do to stay out of Azkaban? I'm going to have to prove I didn't kill Cedric. How can I prove_that_?_

And this was the immovable obstacle in Harry's path. Try as he might, he could think of no argument for his innocence that didn't involve convincing the Ministry that Voldemort had indeed come back. And there was nothing that he could say that would make Fudge willing to believe that. Perhaps Voldemort might have started killing Muggles again? But no- Voldemort wasn't that stupid. Voldemort knew that it was in his best interests to keep Fudge and the Ministry thinking that Dumbledore and Harry were just trying to start a mindless panic. He wouldn't start giving people reasons to believe that he had actually returned, not for a while anyway.

_Well then,_Harry decided, _I guess all I can do is tell the truth, and whatever happens, happens. That's what Dumbledore would want me to do._Somehow encouraged by this thought in spite of the hopelessness of the situation, Harry allowed himself to crack a slight grin. And it was in this mood that the bread-and-water dwarf found Harry when he came to deliver his "lunch" and summon him to the courtroom for his trial.

As he entered the courtroom, Harry recognized as the same one that he had seen in the Pensieve. But somehow it felt different. Then he realized why: as he looked around the crowd, he found that it was full of familiar faces. Dumbledore and his friend Mad-Eye Moody were in their usual place, and Professors McGonagall and Flitwick were seated near them. With them was a slightly crazy-looking old man next to Moody whom Harry didn't recognize, and an older woman next to Dumbledore whom Harry was sure he had seen before but somehow couldn't place. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were seated not far away; Ron's father looked the angriest Harry had seen him since the time he and Lucius Malfoy had gotten into a fistfight in the Flourish and Blotts bookstore, and Mrs. Weasley looked like she had been crying. Several of Ron's siblings were also there. Bill grinned encouragingly at Harry and Charlie gave him a thumbs-up sign, but Fred and George looked serious and almost scared, probably for the first time in their lives, and Ginny had her hands pressed to her face and didn't meet Harry's eyes. Percy, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Harry's eyes only briefly took in a large number of others who seemed friendly: Cedric's parents, who had already told Harry that they believed in his innocence, and Professor Sprout with them; Cho Chang, in the row behind them, with an older couple who were presumably her parents (Harry didn't have time to notice that his heart no longer skipped a beat at the sight of Cho); Seamus Finnigan with his mother, and his friend Dean Thomas; Neville Longbottom with his rather intimidating grandmother in her usual flowery hat; and a host of others whom Harry's mind didn't register. Another part of the crowd, however, seemed full of unfriendly-looking people, including several Slytherins. Harry looked away before he could recognize any of these besides Draco Malfoy and his mother, Narcissa.

Harry had now arrived at the chair in the center of the courtroom, where he was directed to sit. As he did so, he felt comforted by the fact that its chains did not wrap themselves around his arms, as had happened to some of the chair's occupants. In one of the scenes from the Pensieve, the chair had left Ludo Bagman alone, and Bagman had turned out to be innocent of the charges against him.

"I can't believe this", said a familiar voice at his right elbow, cutting in on his thoughts. Harry turned and nodded hello to Ron Weasley. "Blimey, all we did was hit Malfoy with a few hexes. Not like he didn't do the same to Hermione's teeth last year. They can't send us to Azkaban for that, can they?"

"That's not all they've got _me_ for", Harry replied to Ron's apparent puzzlement. "Cedric", Harry explained. Ron's eyes widened in horror, and Harry added in a low voice, "And they caught Hedwig on her way to Sirius too." At this Ron said something sufficiently vile to make Harry glad that Hermione wasn't there to raise a stink about Ron's unpleasant taste in vocabulary.

A few seconds later Hermione did appear, however, and was seated at Harry's left side. "That foul- that evil-" she burst out indignantly.

"What?" chorused Harry and Ron.

_"Rita Skeeter"_, Hermione stormed. "I saw her on my way in here. And do you know what she said? She's _registered_ now, and says I can't do anything to her now. And if I tell anyone about what she did before, she'll accuse me of falsely imprisoning her- 'and I don't think you need any more troubles with the law right now', she said. And do you know what else? She says, 'Don't get any big ideas, my dear. Remember, freedom of the press is limited to those who happen to own one.' And then she waggled that vile quill of hers at me. Ooh, it makes me so sick- if I could just- I don't know what I'd do." Hermione collapsed into silence. It had taken her about ten seconds to say all of this.

_"Rita Skeeter?!"_said Ron incredulously. Harry looked around, and Rita was indeed there, seated in her usual press reporter's seat, wearing bright orange robes which clashed violently with her new purple Quick-Quotes Quill. She gave Harry and his friends a toothy, malevolent smile as she brandished her Quill at them. Harry sighed. All they needed now was for a giant Acromantula spider to come and haul Ron off to prison, and all their worst nightmares would have come true.

And then, with a sinking feeling, Harry watched Lucius Malfoy, looking as sleek as ever, ascent to the podium. The trial was about to begin.


	3. Chapter 3

"Witches and wizards of the jury," Mr. Malfoy began in his most oily voice, "the honorable Judge Thorne, the honorable Minister Fudge, and all those present, welcome.

"It is my most unfortunate duty this morning to present to you the sad and sorrowful facts of the case against a boy who, I daresay, has been a hero to so many of us. I refer, of course, to young Harry Potter, who stands on trial today along with Mr. Ronald Weasley and the-" he wrinkled his face in disgust- "_Muggle-born_ Hermione Granger, for the magical assault and battery of my own son, Draco Malfoy, as well as his good friends Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle.

"Nor does this represent the entirety of the case against young Mr. Potter. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has been shocked-_shocked-_to receive, in recent weeks, indisputable and incontrovertible evidence, not only that Potter has been in communication with and support of a convicted mass murderer, Sirius Black" (there were gasps from the audience at this point; none of them except for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and a few others knew that Sirius was innocent) "but also that he himself has become a murderer like his mentor Black, that he has learned the darkest of all Dark curses, the infamous _Avada Kedavra_curse developed by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself, and that in a fit of competitive and- dare I say it?- romantic jealousy, he has used this Unforgivable Curse against a fellow Hogwarts student, Cedric Diggory of Hufflepuff House, resulting in the tragic and untimely death of his Triwizard Tournament rival."

Behind Harry and to the right he heard a suppressed sob from Mrs. Weasley, and a choking sound in what he thought was probably Mr. Diggory's voice. Otherwise the courtroom was deathly silent.

"A far-fetched idea?" Mr. Malfoy continued. "A strange and bizarre theory? So it may seem. Yet it fits precisely with the consistent pattern of behavior that Potter has shown ever since the beginning of his schooling at Hogwarts School, as will be shown by the testimony of the witnesses that I shall call.

"In recent months, it has become publicly known that Potter is a Parselmouth, a Dark wizard who speaks the language of serpents. Whether he obtained this ability at birth, or through his youthful contact with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, or through his own secret forays into the Dark Arts, is unknown at present; and for the purposes of this court it is immaterial. It has also become known that Potter considers himself above his fellow students and the rules that apply to such common folk, as he sees it; that he has associated with such Dark creatures as werewolves and part-giants; and that a host of other irrational behaviors have characterized his scholastic years, all for the purpose of sustaining the small amount of celebrity he received as a result of his early childhood encounter with the Dark Lord.

"The Department of Magical Law Enforcement therefore wishes to present to this honorable court the following conclusions: First, that young Potter, having encountered the Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, in early childhood, and having lost his parents as a result of that encounter and having been abandoned for the remainder of his childhood years to the inept and unsympathetic care of his mother's Muggle family, developed such a degree of hatred and bitterness as can scarcely fail to lead a wizard into the practice of the Dark Arts.

"Second, that upon his re-integration into wizarding society and arrival at Hogwarts School, Potter, as all Dark wizards do, accumulated a group of loyal followers around himself, led by young Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger, characterized by an unswerving devotion to Potter's personality cult and a tendency to use curses without provocation against those who refused to submit to it.

"Third, that upon the escape from Azkaban of Sirius Black, the chief servant of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named who was convicted of mass murder thirteen years ago, Black sought out contact with young Potter, in the hope of raising him up as a new Dark Lord with Black at his side as he had once been at He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's.

"And fourth and finally, that this diabolical plan, assisted also by another escaped Death Eater, young Barty Crouch" (there were gasps from the crowd; apparently not everybody had known about him) "reached its first fruition on the twenty-fourth of June this year, when Potter demonstrated his mastery of the Killing Curse on his hated and despised rival, the noble Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory; and that Albus Dumbledore, the kindly old Headmaster of Hogwarts who, I regret to say, seems no longer to be in full possession of his intellectual faculties, has been deluded into inadvertently supporting Potter and Black's nefarious scheme by promoting and circulating Potter's outlandish claim that the previous Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, has returned to his body and is re-gaining followers, a claim undoubtedly designed to distract public attention from Potter's own ruthless ambitions toward power and Darkness.

"We therefore believe that unless Harry Potter is stopped without further delay, the wizarding world risks a fearsome catastrophe, a reign of terror every bit as terrible as that of the previous Dark Lord. These charges against Potter and his cohorts in crime will be substantiated by the evidence of the witnesses whom I shall forthwith call to testify before this honorable magical court."

There was a moment of silence.

_"You lie, Malfoy!"_ a crochety-sounding voice suddenly called. Harry turned around; the crazy old warlock on the other side of Moody from Dumbledore was standing up and shouting. Dumbledore seemed to be trying to get to him to quiet down, but Moody was blocking Dumbledore's path. "You lie like a snake with its belly on the ground. You lie like a Slytherin!"

"Mundungus!" interrupted Dumbledore sharply, as Harry realized that the man must be Mundungus Fletcher, whom he had heard Mr. Weasley and Percy referring to on a couple of occasions. Just then Judge Thorne banged his gavel. "ORDER IN THE COURT! Fletcher, you are out of order and hereby ordered to remain silent for the remainder of his trial."

As Fletcher grumpily sat down, the judge turned back to the podium. "Mr. Malfoy," he said in a calmer tone, "will you please call your first witness."

Lucius nodded. "Draco Malfoy, please take the witness stand."

With even more than his usual smirk, silvery-blond Draco Malfoy ambled up to the witness stand and faced his father.

"Draco Malfoy," Lucius began, "will you please describe for the Court the events which took place on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth of June this year."

"Well," drawled Malfoy, "we were on the train back from Hogwarts like usual. And Vince and Greg- er, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, that is- they and I stopped in on Potter's compartment to say hello. I've tried to be friends with Potter, you know, but he's never been interested. Guess he thinks he's too good for me or something. So I stopped by to talk about what happened, and tried to remind Potter that if he'd not been so uppity back in his first year I could have, you know, helped him stay out of trouble. And I guess he and Weasley and Granger didn't like the sound of that, 'cause they all jumped up and whipped their wands out and started cursing me and Vince and Greg for no reason."

Ron whispered a rather profane opinion of Malfoy's version of events, and even Hermione was too angry to cut him off. Harry felt sick at how cleverly Malfoy could twist the truth. Evidently it ran in the family.

"Draco," Mr. Malfoy continued, "have Mr. Potter and his friends ever behaved in this fashion on any previous occasions?"

"Oh yeah," Draco replied, "lots of times. It goes all the way back to first year, when Potter tried to fight a wizard's duel with me at midnight. He and his friends are always trying to get around the rules like that, but I wouldn't have it. In second year Weasley tried to curse me for no reason, only it backfired and he ended up burping slugs after that one. Kind of funny, you know. Then in third year Granger just comes up to me and hits me in the face. You can't even try to be polite to these people, they do stuff like that to you. And then last year Potter cursed me with his wand, and I tried to defend myself, and his curse deflected off and hit Greg in the face and made him break out in these awful boils.

"And the thing is, you see, Potter's always been Dumbledore's favorite boy, and he lets him and his friends get away with everything. I can't wait 'til the school Governors get rid of him for good, and let us have a decent Headmaster like Professor Snape who'll run the school properly." Draco shot a grin toward where Snape was sitting.

"So yeah, anyway, the point is, Potter and his weasely little friends have always been like that, and I say it's about time someone called them to account for it. This should have happened a long time ago, and maybe then Diggory wouldn't have had to get it from Potter's wand."

"Thank you, Draco," said Lucius. "You have testified about Mr. Potter's friendships with Mr. Weasley and with Miss Granger. In your observation, has Mr. Potter been involved in any other- er- _suspicious_ friendships?"

"Oh, er, yeah. Well, the gamekeeper turns out to be a giant, or part-giant, or something, and he's as violent as they come, trying to breed dragons and hippogriffs and these illegal things called skrewts that always explode on you when you're not looking." (There was a murmuring from the friendlier part of the crowd at this; these were presumably the people that had supported Hagrid after Rita Skeeter had written a nasty article about him the previous winter.)

"So anyway, Potter has always been hanging around with him, always going over to his cabin ever since first year. And then he was in tight with the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher in third year, and he turned out to be a werewolf. So there you've got the two most violent dangerous creatures in the whole school, and Potter's great friends with both of them. Kinda tells you something, doesn't it?"

Lucius nodded. "Thank you, Draco, you have been of excellent service to the Ministry and to this court. Will Vincent Crabbe please take the stand next, please?"

As Draco walked smirking back to his seat and Crabbe took his place on the stand, Harry could hear Ron softly whispering "bouncing ferrets, bouncing ferrets" in a desperate attempt to calm himself. Ron was right, Harry found; thinking of Malfoy's time as a ferret really did help. A little bit, anyway.

Lucius' voice then snapped Harry back to reality. "Vincent, will you please tell the court what happened that afternoon?"

"Er, uh, yeah. What Draco said."

Harry exchanged glances with Ron and Hermione. _Right, Crabbe, really original,_ they all were obviously thinking.

"Can you please be more specific?" Lucius prodded.

"Well, er, we, uh, were on the train, and we, er, went into their compartment, and, yeah, er, Draco was talking to them, and then they, er, er, they all started cursing us, and, I guess, that's all."

"Thank you, Vincent. You may be seated."

Crabbe, looking exhausted by his ordeal, returned to his seat in the auditorium. Goyle's turn was next. Ron caught Harry's eye and sniffed the air; Harry grinned at the reference to Ron's cartoon sketch of Goyle as a troll in Harry's textbook of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_.

"Gregory, can you please tell us what happened on the afternoon of June the twenty-ninth?"

Goyle grunted. "Same thing."

"Same thing as what, please?"

Another grunt. "As Draco and Vince."

Harry exchanged glances with his friends again. If he hadn't been on trial for a life term in Azkaban, this would have been immensely funny.

"Can you please tell the story in your own words?"

Goyle looked as if he had no idea on earth what that meant.

"Gregory?"

"On the train." (Silence.) "They cursed us." (Silence.) "That's all."

"Thank you, Gregory," Lucius replied with an appreciative smile, "you have been of great service to this court."

Goyle returned to his seat looking happy, even if he hadn't entirely understood Lucius' compliment_. Now I know what to bring up the next time Malfoy calls Neville brainless, thought Harry._Then he remembered that he might not be around to complain about it next time.

Meanwhile, Mr. Malfoy had turned to the bench. "This now completes the witnesses to the assault by Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, and Miss Granger on the Hogwarts Express. With the court's permission, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement would now like to continue to the remaining charges against Mr. Potter."

"Please continue," nodded Judge Thorne. "The defendants will have opportunity to respond to the charges when the Ministry completes the presentation of its case."

"Very well," continued Lucius. "Will Officer Brundage Avery of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement please take the stand?"

Avery came forward. Harry had a better chance to take in Avery's appearance now than he had in their previous meeting on Privet Drive. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties (Sirius had told Harry that Avery was once a classmate of Snape in Slytherin), and was of medium height with dark hair and a moustache.

"Mr. Avery," Lucius began, "will you please inform the court concerning your assignment of the morning of July the third for the Department?"

Avery nodded. "I was assigned on that day to keep watch on the house where Potter lives with his Muggle relatives in Surrey, in the town of Little Whinging." He grinned briefly at the name of the town, which apparently seemed humorous to him. "The Ministry has, you see, been a bit... concerned about Potter, given the recent reports in the _Daily Prophet_." Harry burned inwardly at the thought of Rita Skeeter, and could tell without looking that Ron and especially Hermione were thinking the same thing.

"And what did you observe that day?" continued Lucius.

"I saw Potter releasing his owl with a letter to someone. Of course I was immediately suspicious, you know, and since I had been issued a search warrant to be used in case of suspicious activities by Potter, it was my right and duty to intercept the owl. With the help of a Ministry-issue Firebolt and Invisibility Cloak, it wasn't hard."

Harry's inward burning reached its highest temperature yet. The only thing comforting was knowing that Ron and Hermione were just as indignant on his behalf.

"And so," Avery continued, "it turned out to be a good thing I did. My suspicions were right, you see. Potter was writing to a known criminal for advice. He was writing to his godfather... the notorious mass murderer, Sirius Black." And he produced the letter from within his cloak and handed it to Lucius Malfoy.

"Thank you, Mr. Avery," Lucius replied as he took the letter. "You may be seated." And then Lucius did the most horrifying thing yet. Unfolding the letter, he went on to explain, "Mr. Potter's letter to Mr. Black will now be read before the court, so that it may be properly entered in the court records as evidence of Mr. Potter's crime."

"Continue," nodded Judge Thorne.

With a malicious glint in his eye, Lucius begain to read. _Dear Sirius... can you help me understand girls?_

_Oh, no!_ Harry sank back in his chair with his hands to his forehead, stunned. In all the horror of having had his letter intercepted, he had somehow forgotten until now exactly what it was that he had written in the letter. His most personal thoughts were about to be spilled before the entire wizarding world- Rita's Quick-Quotes Quill was sure to splash it all across the front page of the _Daily Prophet_. Even Professor Snape couldn't have dreamed up such an awful scenario. Harry could hear Ron and Hermione suck their breath in, not knowing exactly what Harry was written but realizing how awful it must be for him. Meanwhile, as Lucius paused for effect, a rumble of laughter came tumbling down from the Slytherin-dominated section of the audience. This was going to be a treat for them.

… _I suppose my godfather will be the next best thing_, Lucius was now continuing._There's one girl that I liked, Cho Chang, but she liked another guy…_

Harry didn't dare to look to where Cho was sitting with her family. This had to be as embarrassing for her as it was for him. He didn't want to know what Cedric's parents were thinking. Whom else had he mentioned? Hermione, although she agreed that they were just friends, so that shouldn't be a problem; Ginny… oh, no, that might be bad…

Just then a welcome voice came from Harry's right. "Objection, your honor!" Professor Dumbledore was standing up. "The letter is obviously of a very personal nature, and the reading of it is not serving the case against Mr. Potter so much as it is making a public mockery of him."

"Overruled," intoned Judge Thorne. "The letter has already established Mr. Potter's relationship with Mr. Black. It may contribute more relevant information as well. It is the Ministry's decision what evidence to present in its cases against accused criminals." He banged his gavel. "Continue, Mr. Malfoy."

Continuing in a mock-sentimental tone, Lucius went on: _There's another girl that seems like she likes me, but that's Ron's little sister Ginny…_Oh, no, this definitely wasn't good. Even if Harry didn't want her as a girlfriend, he certainly hadn't meant to do this to her either. _"Little sister"-_she probably wouldn't like that too much. He grinned wryly. _Oh, well,_ he thought,_I guess I won't have problems with her liking me too much any more; she'll definitely hate me after this one._He could feel Ron glaring at him from one side. Hermione was apparently looking at him also, although he couldn't guess what her expression might have been and didn't really want to know, didn't want to think about any of this.

Lucius was continuing: …_After what happened with Neville's parents, it would be really nice for him to have a good girlfriend like Ginny…_Had he really written that? Yeah, he guessed he had. In its own way, this was the worst yet. He had promised Dumbledore that he would keep the secret of Neville's parents, who were in the insanity ward of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. He hadn't thought about that when telling it to Sirius; somehow that didn't seem the same as if he had told one of their classmates. And now the whole world knew that something was the matter with Neville's parents.

…_Everybody things Hermione is my girlfriend… If anything, she and Ron might like each other, but don't tell them I said that…_The Slytherins practically exploded with laughter at this one. In the commotion that followed- hilarious jeering from Harry's enemies mixed with angry shouts at Lucius from the friendlier adults- Harry thought he heard Draco Malfoy's voice yelling something involving the word "Mudblood". And Ron and Hermione were definitely both glaring at him now. Harry stared determinedly at the floor. Whom else had he mentioned? No, no, he didn't even want to think about it. He just wanted this to be over.

…_Parvati Patil, from Gryffindor in my year… there's nothing going on there…_Great. Now Parvati was going to be upset with him too. At this rate, the whole school was going to be mad at him. Then he remembered that he might never go to Hogwarts again. Like a unexpected dash of ice-cold water to his face, the thought drew him out of his self-pity a bit.

…_I suppose this has been a totally stupid letter…_The Slytherins were rolling in the aisles now. Harry had to give Lucius credit, he was making this even worse than when Snape had read the _Daily Prophet_article that made Hermione out to be manipulating the affections of both Harry and Viktor Krum. And that took some doing.

When the laughter had settled down, Professor Dumbledore's voice came from the back once again. "Your Honor, I must reiterate for the record my objection, even if after the fact. The letter has caused great embarrassment to a young man and several of his friends, and has served very little purpose to this case."

"Very well, Professor, your objection shall be noted in the record," the judge replied. _Fat lot of good that'll do_, thought Harry glumly. He didn't know why he cared what people thought of him- he was going to Azkaban, Voldemort was going to come, Voldemort would bring the Dementors back to his side, and it would be _Avada Kedavra_, and that would be all. There was nothing left to care about anymore.

Even so, he couldn't help himself. He glanced into the audience, to where the Weasleys were sitting. Mrs. Weasley caught his eye, and Harry was glad to see that she at least didn't seem to be angry with him. She didn't look happy, of course, but her anger seemed directed more at Mr. Malfoy; she looked like she would have tried to comfort Harry if she could. But then again, there at Mrs. Weasley's side was Ginny, slumped against her mother's body, her head buried in her arms, her body shaking with silent sobs. Harry quickly looked away. He supposed that he had done worse and stupider things; but somehow, having hurt Ron's sister Ginny like that, _felt_ like the worst of it all.

"The next witness for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Lucius was now continuing, "will be Professor Severus Snape."

Snape took the witness stand. Harry tried to remember what Dumbledore had said about Snape. Apparently Dumbledore had approved of Snape's testifying against Harry, in order to avoid jeopardizing Snape's position with Voldemort. But what would Snape say? If Snape was really on their side, how could he send Harry to Azkaban? And, for the thousandth time, what made Dumbledore so sure about Snape anyway?

"Professor Snape," Lucius asked in an oily tone, "Will you please describe for the court the general characteristics you have observed in young Mr. Potter's behavior during his four years as a student at Hogwarts School?"

Harry, having heard Snape's commentary on the subject on many previous occasions, could have given Snape's testimony almost as well as Snape did. "Potter has been…" Snape began, and continued with Harry whispering along with him, _"crossing lines ever since he arrived at school."_Ron also whispered the last few words along with Harry. They glanced at each other and almost exchanged grins- but then Ron remembered that he was mad at Harry for spreading rumors about him and Hermione, and looked away. Ron's looking away hit Harry like a punch to the stomach, much more so than Snape's ongoing testimony.

"…by the Headmaster," Snape was continuing. "He seems to have a certain… _fondness_ for Gryffindor students in general and for Potter in particular. Indeed, this has been a long-running disagreement between the Headmaster and myself: I believe in treating all students the same, while Professor Dumbledore apparently believes that some students are born to special privilege. I have never supported this policy.

"As for Potter himself, I can testify that no other student has caused as much deliberate havoc in my classroom, or shown me such disrespect as Potter has. In all my years of teaching, only one student has told me to my face to 'shut up', and that was Harry Potter. He is easily, _easily_, the most arrogant student I have ever met. And so yes, I can certainly confirm from my experience Potter's tendency toward ringleading and rebelliousness."

"Thank you, Professor," replied Lucius. "And let me also ask: Can you tell the court about the incident which occurred during the short-lived existence of a certain Dueling Club, about two and a half years ago?"

"Certainly," replied the Potions master. "Potter was sparring with Malfoy- er, your son Draco, that is. During the course of their match, young Draco successfully used the _Serpensortia_ charm," (here Lucius beamed with pride) "which causes a snake to emerge from the wand of the one casting the spell, to act as a defender. And when Potter was faced with the snake, he was caught by surprise and shouted at the snake in an apparent effort to turn the serpent's attention to another student, Justin Finch-Fletchley of Hufflepuff House."

"He _shouted_ at the snake? Most interesting indeed," Lucius continued with a sly grin. "Did the serpent then appear capable of comprehending human speech?"

"That would scarcely have necessary," Snape answered with an expression suggesting that he and Lucius were enjoying a subtle but immensely funny inside joke, "given that Potter was speaking to it in Parseltongue."

"Hmmm. Parseltongue? _Indeed._ Thank you once again, Professor." It was interesting to listen to Lucius' and Snape's voices in succession. Both of them spoke in extremely oily tones, as if Lucius' sleek coiffure and Snape's greasy locks had been dripping into their respective throats all morning. But Lucius almost seemed to be playing a game, but Snape spoke in a completely serious, no-nonsense manner. All Harry knew for sure was that he didn't like either of them.

Snape was now answering Lucius' next question. "Yes, I can also confirm Potter's relationship to Black." A new vindictiveness seemed evident in his voice. "Potter's father and Black were best friends at school. Whether or not James Potter asked Black to serve as godfather for Harry was, I suppose, privileged information, available only to those in their precious inner circle. Certainly I was not informed and cannot speak directly to the matter; but it is consistent with my knowledge of Black and Potter's father.

"What I do know first-hand is that, a year ago June, I encountered Potter and his friends in a clandestine meeting with Black and his werewolf friend Lupin, after hours and outside school boundaries. Black had clearly gained Potter's confidence, and Weasley's and Granger's also. At the time I believed this to be due to a Confundus charm by Black, but I have since come to believe that Potter and the others were eagerly drinking in Black's every word of their own free will. And so Potter's ongoing correspondence with Black, as documented by Mr. Avery, does not surprise me in the slightest."

"Thank you again, Professor," Lucius replied. "I might also ask: Can you testify concerning Mr. Potter's relationship to the deceased young Mr. Diggory?"

"I can only tell you what I've seen, Mr. Malfoy," Snape answered. "What I have seen, time after time during the school year past, was Potter, seated at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, casting longing eyes toward the Ravenclaw table, and usually in the general vicinity of Miss Chang; and Potter, flaring up with suppressed rage every time Diggory walked by. I do not believe that it requires any great degree of genius to interpret these observations."

There was another suppressed sob from the audience, this time in what sounded like Cho's voice, and then a pair of footsteps exiting the auditorium, followed by about two other pairs of footsteps trying to catch up with the first. Snape glanced in that direction and smirked.

"And can you inform the court of what transpired between Mr. Potter and Mr. Diggory on the night of June the twenty-fourth?"

There was a brief silence. Then Snape replied: "That I cannot. I was present on the Hogwarts grounds during that entire evening, and Potter and Diggory had been transported elsewhere when the alleged murder took place."

Somehow, hearing this from Snape surprised Harry. Something didn't sound right about this, but he couldn't figure out what it was.

"Can you confirm that the two young men both left the Hogwarts grounds alive, and that they returned with Mr. Potter alive and Mr. Diggory dead?"

"I can," Snape nodded. "Draw what conclusions you wish." And with that he stopped, evidently having no more to say. Lucius nodded just a bit uncomfortably, but thanked Snape and dismissed him back to his seat.

_Wait a minute,_ thought Harry. _That's what sounded odd: Snape had the chance to call me a murderer, and he didn't. He said almost everything Mr. Malfoy wanted him to, but not quite. Or am I really right about that? And is he really on our side? Would his debt to my father make him do that even if he weren't?_Harry really wished he understood. There were just too many possibilities to try to make sense of it.

The next witness was a bit of a surprise, as Lucius Malfoy called forward Professor Trelawney. Harry was momentarily stunned by this; Trelawney, the misty-voiced Divination professor, was hardly the sort of person he'd expect to show up in the line of Death Eaters and Slytherins in Lucius' parade of witnesses. She wasn't a Death Eater too, was she? Surely she couldn't…

But then it all made sense, as Lucius asked, "Professor Trelawney, please tell us what took place in your classroom on the afternoon of May 31st?

"On that _particular_afternoon," said Trelawney, "I was delivering a lesson to my class on the influence of the planet Mars on daily life, since Mars was placed _most_interestingly that afternoon, forming obtuse angles both with Saturn and with the earth. This is an unusual event, you understand and one of most _extraordinary_ significance…"

"Thanks you, Professor," Lucius interrupted. Trelawney looked somewhat put out. "And can you tell us what happened to Mr. Potter in your class that afternoon?"

"_Well,_" replied Trelawney (still looking rather offended), "in the middle of my lecture, the poor dear boy, born under such baleful influences, started rolling on the ground. He was clutching his scar and screaming out loud. It was _most_ obviously a…"

"Thank you again, Professor, you are dismissed." Lucius smiled and nodded at Trelawney and motioned her back to her seat. Trelawney looked extremely disappointed at having lost her audience, but she had no choice but to relinquish the witness stand. Hermione, who disliked Professor Trelawney almost as much as she did the Malfoy family, gave an amused snort at this.

Lucius was clearing his throat again. "For our next witness, I would like to call forward Dr. Clooney Hatch of the Lunacy and Idiocy Ward of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries."

_A doctor from the lunacy ward?!_thought Harry. Caught off guard, he wondered for a moment what Lucius could be up to now. Then it made sense: this must be the specialist Rita Skeeter had quoted in her "Harry Potter: Disturbed and Dangerous?" article in the _Daily Prophet_. And now this Dr. Hatch- who turned out to be an older-looking man with an ill-fitting laboratory coat, large round-rimmed glasses, combed-over white hair, and a bushy white beard- was going to tell the wizarding world that Harry Potter showed all the signs of being an insane murderer. Harry wondered if wizarding courts allowed the plea of "not guilty by reason of insanity" like Muggle courts did. _Nah, probably not- if they did, Lucius wouldn't be going to all this trouble to prove how nutters I am._

And then another thought hit Harry upside the head. _Hey, wait a minute… St. Mungo's? Lunacy Ward?_He couldn't help it- he stole a glance in the direction of Neville Longbottom and his grandmother. _Yup- they must know him. All too well, it looks like._Neville's was glaring at Dr. Hatch, his face flushed with what was for him a rare flash of anger. Indeed, Harry had never seen Neville looking like that. Neville's Gran, meanwhile, had clamped her face into a tight-lipped grimace reminiscent of Professor McGonagall's face when she was about to give someone detention. Harry wondered what could be behind that. Evidently there was a story behind Dr. Hatch related to Neville's parents, and it probably wasn't a good one.

"Dr. Hatch," Lucius was asking, "You have heard the testimony of witnesses, to the effect that young Mr. Potter has been experiencing pain in the scar which he obtained through his youthful encounter with the Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. What would you expect to be the effects of such a curse scar, and what causes would result in pain in it?"

"Well," intoned Dr. Hatch in a rather funny accent, "it is my professional opinion that a curse scar such as this one, it will most likely have the effect of leaving a connection between the curser and the cursed, so that a little bit of the one is left within the soul of the other. If you read the_Journal of the Wizarding Medical Association_ from 1937, you will find the account of one Robert Sachmann, who received a scar after suffering the Cruciatus Curse from the Dark wizard Grindelwald, and who died several months later as a result of wandering into the Rhine while mumbling incoherently about 'taking over the world.' And so it is not at all inconceivable that something like this may have taken place in the case of young Mr. Potter, that certain… _aspects_ of the Dark Lord's personality are fighting for ascendance within him, and that the effects of this have resulted in his complaints of pain in his forehead."

"And can you comment as to what conclusions can be drawn by medical science concerning a young boy who befriends a convicted murderer, a werewolf, and a part-giant with a penchant for illegal and violent magical creatures?"

"Well," replied Dr. Hatch thoughtfully as he stroked his beard, "I'm most sorry to say it, but in such a case as that I would have to say that the darker aspects of the boy's personality were becoming dominant. There's obviously a thirst for violence there, and given the case history in question, it's all too easy to see where it came from and where it's going."

Lucius was satisfied with this, and dismissed Dr. Hatch. "Finally," he continued, "it is my privilege to call to the witness stand the honorable Minister of Magic, Mr. Cornelius Fudge."

Minister Fudge came forward, clad in his usual pinstriped cloak and lime-green bowler hat _(doesn't he_own_any other cloaks?_ Harry wondered). Lucius gave him a smile that was obviously manipulative even from where Harry sat- but, somehow, apparently not to Fudge. "Minister Fudge," he began, "can you tell us about the events that took place on the grounds of Hogwarts School on the twenty-fourth of June?"

Fudge returned the smile and answered, "Well, you see, Lucius, it was, of course, the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, and I was there to fill in for Barty Crouch as a judge. Shame about old Barty. And what happened was that Harry and Cedric Diggory grabbed the Triwizard Cup together, and got whisked off by Portkey to who-knows-where. Of course, we didn't know that, you understand. Everyone was starting to get worried about them when nothing happened for about forty-five minutes or so, and then all of a sudden, Harry and Cedric materialize at the entrance to the maze- Harry alive and Cedric dead."

_"Harry alive and Cedric dead?"_ said Lucius in mock amazement. "Dear me. Have you any idea how this happened?"

"Well, of course there's no doubt as to the cause of death. _Avada Kedavra._Once you've seen a body that's been victimized by the killing curse, you never mistake anything else for it. Even Dumbledore and Harry didn't deny that part of it. The only question is who did it. As I'm sure you've all heard by now, young Barty Crouch turned out to be alive after all." (Apparently everyone hadn't heard, as there were several gasps of amazement from the audience at this revelation.) "His soul was removed by one of my Dementors, so there's no danger of any harm from him now. But he was a Death Eater, even Dumbledore says so, and I'm sure he got it from Potter. Apparently he had Stunned old Mad-Eye Moody and had been impersonating him with Polyjuice Potion all school year."

_"You better believe that,"_came the familiar voice of the real Mad-Eye Moody. As Harry turned around, Moody looked like he was on the verge of saying more, but Fudge started talking again and Moody reluctantly took his seat.

"And so, you see… you see… it happened that Moody, who was really young Crouch, had had the responsibility of carrying the Triwizard Cup to the center of the Maze before the Task. He insisted on it, as I recall. Didn't trust anyone else. Thought that otherwise Dark wizards might tamper with it. Turns out he was right, of course, but little did we know. Anyway, the only explanation that makes sense is that Moody- I mean, young Crouch- must have been in league with Harry to begin with. I'd wondered why he'd seemed so protective of Harry all year. The plan was apparently to have young Barty set up the Portkey, have Harry make Cedric take it at the same time as him, and let them be whisked away to some place unknown where Harry could take care of Diggory- a bit of a rival of his, as I'm told- without any outside interference. That way, Harry gets rid of Diggory, and they've got a nice ready-made excuse to say You-Know-Who's back and start this mindless panic that we've got going on here."

_"FUDGE, YOU FOOL!"_bellowed Moody from the back this time. "You'll believe anything to avoid what's staring you in the face won't you? You know the old Merlin's Razor principle, don't you? Didn't they teach you that in school? _When you've got several ways to explain an event, the simplest…"_

But he was interrupted by the banging of Judge Thorne's gavel. "Moody! You are out of order, and are ordered to remain silent for the duration of the trial along with Fletcher."

Moody sat down, fists clenched, and this time even Dumbledore's eyes were flashing with suppressed rage. Fletcher nodded at Moody, who nodded back. Dumbledore gave them what appeared to be a warning glance, but Harry couldn't quite interpret it. Meanwhile, Lucius was smoothly continuing, "And Minister, what was the explanation that young Potter gave for these events? I believe you've hinted at it already."

"He said… he said that the Dark Lord is back, You-Know-Who." (Most people appeared to have heard this rumor already, but there were still a few gasps from around the audience.) "And… well, _you_ know that can't be true, Lucius. He's been gone for thirteen years, why would he come back now? And it's taken us all these thirteen years to rebuilt the society that You-Know-Who destroyed, and now it seems Potter- assisted, as it seems, by the only two Death Eaters to escape Azkaban, Black and young Crouch- is trying to turn all that over again. And Dumbledore- well, the boy can do no wrong in Dumbledore's eyes, and he's just helping him along the way."

_"Interesting,"_said Lucius Malfoy. But _surely_ not Harry Potter? The boy who saved us from the Dark Lord? You have never had any reason to doubt the boy's character or truthfulness before, have you?"

"Well, I have," said Fudge flatly. "Last year we had caught Black at Hogwarts, and Potter helped him escape. Don't ask me how, I've got no idea, but he was telling some story about Black being 'innocent', and Peter Pettigrew being the real villain of the piece. Well, let me tell you, I'm not going to fall for that one. I saw Sirius Black with my own eyes, laughing like a madman over the dead bodies of a dozen Muggles and the fragments of poor Pettigrew. Did I ever tell you, the largest bit of him they found was his finger? So anyway, yes, certainly, the boy's up to something. His tales keep getting taller every year, and if Dumbledore doesn't put a stop to it, then it's up to the Ministry to do it. And the Dementors, of course."

There was a moment of silence while Lucius nodded solemnly, and then-

_"FUDGE! YOU FOOL!"_

_"How long will you let that snake of a Malfoy pull the wool over your eyes?!"_

Harry turned back and to his right, and saw Dumbledore trying unsuccessfully to restrain Moody and Fletcher. Both were drawing their wands.

_"This is contempt of court!"_bellowed Lucius, leaping slightly in the air as he turned to the judge in anger. It was a fatal mistake: a flash of light came from one of the drawn wands, and Lucius had become an albino gorilla, continuing to jump up and down on the prosecutor's stand, which sounded like it was showing definite signs of strain. Harry looked back again, and Moody's wand shot out a burst of white light- the first one must have been Fletcher's- and suddenly, on the witness stand, there sat a gigantic lime-green banana slug where Fudge had been a moment before.

For about ten seconds chaos reigned in the courtroom, as curses were shot back and forth willy-nilly, with the shouting of hundreds of angry voices adding to the general confusion. And then a magically magnified voice- the voice of Albus Dumbledore- made itself heard over everything, calling out, _"Petrificus Omnes!"_

As a grey sphere of light expanded to fill the whole room, Harry felt his body seize up, and he slumped helplessly toward the side of his chair by Ron. Ron fell over in the same way, and their heads clonked. As far as Harry could tell by looking- he could roll his eyes, but his body was stuck- everyone in the audience had suffered the same fate. Silence settled over the courtroom once again.

_"Finite omni incantate,"_came Dumbledore's voice again, and everyone settled back into their seats. Fudge and Lucius had resumed their usual forms (much to Harry's disappointment). Judge Thorne, scrambling back into his seat, banged his gavel, and everyone settled back down.

But Hermione was standing up. "Excuse me… sir? Your honor?"

Judge Thorne nodded at her and tapped his gavel. "Very well, the court recognizes Miss Granger."

"I'd just like to say something. All these people that Mr. Malfoy has had testify- they're almost all Slytherins. They all hate us anyway. And Minister Fudge- well, he's obviously got something to lose by Voldemort being back, hasn't he? Of course he doesn't want to believe it. Can't everyone see that they're all biased against us?"

Judge Thorne cocked an eyebrow. "Well, Mr. Malfoy? Anything to say to that one?"

Lucius nodded with poorly concealed glee. "The last witness for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," he paused and smiled, "will be Percival Weasley."


	4. Chapter 4

A stunned silence settled over the courtroom as Percy came up and took the witness stand. Harry felt rather stunned himself. Of course he had known how dedicated to the Ministry Percy was, but- surely he wouldn't go _this_ far, would he?

Harry noticed that Percy hadn't been sitting with his family- as far as Harry could tell, he seemed to be coming from a rather isolated corner of the courtroom. Harry glanced in the direction of Ron, who leaned over toward Harry and Hermione and mumbled, "He's left home. Doesn't talk to Mum and Dad anymore. Has his own apartment by the Ministry. Broke up with Penelope, too. Had some rows with just about everybody before he left." Ron said this rather shortly- evidently he was still upset about what Harry had said in the letter to Sirius.

When Percy reached the witness stand, Mr. Malfoy began by asking him, "Percival Weasley, have you ever known Mr. Potter and his friends to be of- shall we say- _untrustworthy_character?"

Percy took a deep breath before answering. "I'm sorry to say I have." He took another deep breath.

"My brother Ron and his friends have always seemed to fancy themselves heroes, and as long as they think they're going to save the wizarding world or any such rubbish, no rule is too important for them to break. Even in Ron's first year, he and Harry went off chasing a troll into a girls' bathroom once. Then during the awful business with the Chamber of Secrets, I caught Ron and Harry coming out of a girls' bathroom again, I've got _no_ idea what they were doing there-"

"Probably with Granger!" called a drawling voice from the audience. Muffled snickering spread through the crowd as the implications settled in on them.

"Yes. Well," said Percy, looking mildly ruffled and trying to regain his train of thought. "I know about all the supposedly heroic things they're said to have done," he continued, "but you'll always notice that they always seem to have been well out of bounds during the process. First they sneaked off to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor, then it was the Forbidden Forest- at least twice, from what I've heard Mum and Dad saying- and then Ron and Hermione helped Harry visit Hogsmeade without permission, and I'm sure there's a host of other such things they've done that they haven't had the courage to tell me about. Rules just aren't important to them. Being famous seems to be their only ambition in life. Certainly Ron's spent his whole life trying to get people to pay attention to him, and evidently Harry and Hermione have turned out the same way. I had thought better of Harry and Hermione, and had _hoped_ that they might be a good influence on Ron, but if anything it seems to have gone the other way entirely.

"As far as I can see, it all comes back to my father. Mum tried to raise us all to do things the right way, but Dad was always off disregarding the Ministry, tinkering with all the Muggle rubbish in his shed, breaking his own Muggle Protection Act all over the place. And it's corrupted the whole family. Bill and Charlie did well enough in school, but now they're off joyriding around the world when the Ministry needs every able wizard it can get. Fred and George are the worst, no ambition in life, no respect for anyone, they seem to think they can do whatever they want as long as it's funny. Dad's always let them get away with it. And Ron and Ginny seem to be following their example too- the whole Chamber of Secrets thing wouldn't have happened if Ginny had done things the way she was supposed to."

Again Harry couldn't help it- he looked over at where Mrs. Weasley and Ginny were sitting. This time he couldn't see Ginny's head at all, as she was wrapped protectively in part of her mother's cloak. Mrs. Weasley was looking down, but seemed to be dabbing at her own face with a handkerchief, so Harry supposed she was pretty upset too.

"And now- now Harry starts up all this rubbish about You-Know-Who being back, and now my whole family's rebelled against the Ministry. Even Mum's gone over to the other side this time. None of my family cares about the Ministry in all its troubles, they're all out there trying to make things worse. Nobody cares about doing things right. Nobody cares about the way things ought to be done. I'm the only one that's stood by the Ministry. The rest of them are all against me. As far as I'm concerned, I _have_ no family."

Percy stopped here. Apparently this was all that he had to say. Harry couldn't believe that he had actually been hearing Percy say all of this- Percy had always been basically a friendly figure, if a bit of a stick in the mud. But Harry had also been noticing that Percy didn't look happy as he was saying this, as though some internal struggle were going on, and he didn't really want to be saying these things.

"Excuse me, Your Honor," said Dumbledore from near the back of the auditorium. "May I ask a question of Mr. Percy Weasley?"

Judge Thorne thought about it for a moment, and nodded. "The court recognizes Albus Dumbledore."

But instead of asking a question from where he sat, Dumbledore walked forward to the witness stand and stood face to face with Percy. He stared intently at Percy, raised his wand, and said, _"Finite incantatem."_

And Percy exploded.

"WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT, DUMBLEDORE?" he roared. "ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT ANYBODY WHO DOESN'T GO ALONG WITH YOU MUST BE UNDER THE IMPERIUS CURSE?!"

Harry had seen Percy angry before, but nothing like this.

"Look here, Dumbledore!" Percy continued shouting. "I don't care if you're supposedly the 'greatest wizard of modern times,' or about the business with Grindelwald or any of that. You have no right- NOBODY has the right- to oppose the Ministry of Magic. And not only are you doing this- not ONLY are you doing this- but you're trying to start a mass panic about You-Know-Who coming back. Don't you know what that will do to our society? Economic depression- renegade vigilantes running around in supposed self-defense- total chaos, THAT'S what it will be if you have your way, Dumbledore!"

Percy paused to catch his breath and push up his horn-rimmed glasses, which had nearly fallen off his nose. Harry had never heard anyone talk to Dumbledore like this. A sudden thought struck him, and he realized that Hagrid was absent, probably on a summer errand for Dumbledore. Hagrid didn't take it well when people insulted Dumbledore. Of course, Harry didn't feel like he was taking it too well himself. He would have much preferred that Percy insult _him_ instead of Dumbledore. But if Hagrid had been there- well, Harry didn't know what would have happened, but it would have been chaotic. Percy might have ended up with a donkey's tail sticking out the back of his dress robes.

"I trusted you, Dumbledore." Percy was now using an almost-pleading sort of voice. "I trusted you, all those years at Hogwarts. And now- total rebellion against the Ministry, that's what it is. You have failed, Dumbledore, you have utterly failed to show the kind of respect due to the Minister of Magic, or for that matter to the youngest Ministry department head in eighty-six years." (Harry looked at Ron, who nodded; apparently Percy had been promoted again since the end of the school year.) "What must your students be thinking, Dumbledore? Did you never think of that? If you're not going to respect the Ministry, why should your students treat you any differently?"

"You're heading for trouble, Dumbledore. I'm surprised the school governors haven't already fired you once and for all. If they haven't before, you'd better believe they will now. And that would be entirely too kind, Dumbledore, _entirely_too kind. You're all making the Ministry's job a nightmare. You- you- you and my father and Harry and Ron and- everybody- can all go to-" (Percy's voice was wobbling now) "can all go to Azkaban and- and get your souls sucked for all I care."

Silence reigned. Harry half-expected to see Dumbledore's long white hair blown out back behind him by the force of Percy's righteous tirade, but the Headmaster stood there unperturbed. Then, slowly, Dumbledore nodded.

"Well. I had hoped." His face showed, not the anger Harry had seen in his disagreement with Minister Fudge after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, but only an expression of disappointment and regret. "No further questions, your honor."

Dumbledore returned to his seat, and Judge Thorne dismissed Percy from the witness stand. Percy appeared to be shaking as he walked off. Harry looked again at where the Weasleys were seated. Arthur Weasley was caressing his wife's shoulder and apparently trying to comfort her, but looked as though he were on the verge of breaking down himself. Fred and George had also slid closer in to the rest of the family, and Fred had his left arm around Ginny and was resting his hand on his mother's right shoulder. He and George both looked stunned.

Harry sank back in his chair. The Weasleys had been like a family to him. And even though Percy had never quite fit in with the rest of them, he was still part of the family. It seemed- it almost seemed like something was wrong with the whole world, for the Weasley family to be split apart like this.

Harry shook his head, remembering what Dumbledore had said at the end of the school year: "Lord Voldemort's gift for sowing discord and enmity are very great." But Harry had never expected it to hit this close to home. And Dumbledore was right. It all came back to Voldemort.

_Special A/N to fans of Percy Weasley: I probably owe you an explanation after that, don't I? This will, I'm sorry to say, be the last time Percy appears in this particular story. But I do not intend it to be the end of the story of Percy Weasley (any more than C.S. Lewis intended "The Last Battle" to be the end of the story of Susan Pevensie). Based on JKR's development of his character through GoF, I expect that eventually the family-oriented Percy of whom we've seen a couple of brief flashes, like after the Second Task, will eventually come to the surface, and that he'll be on the right side of the conflict before it's over. But in the meantime, the ambitious career-oriented Percy must be dealt with, and I expect that he's got a long, painful walk on the Bureaucratic Side in front of him before he comes around. And it may well take something drastic- perhaps something like what I've described here- to cause Percy to start to reconsider whether the legalistic, ambitious Percy is really the kind of person that he wants to be. (At this point in my story, he's spend the last couple of weeks being consumed by bitterness against his family for not siding with Fudge, and it's for that reason that he's said some things he wouldn't normally say.)_

_And now, back to the story…_

Lucius Malfoy was now back up in front, summarizing the case against Harry and his friends. All of the evidence, as Lucius described it, pointed toward a long history of untrustworthiness on Harry's and Ron's and Hermione's parts. Harry was certainly in correspondence with Sirius Black, and on very close terms with him too. And finally, all the evidence pointed toward Harry as the murderer of Cedric Diggory (especially since Harry was known to have a motive for the crime).

He then turned to where Harry and the others were seated, and for the first time addressed them directly. "Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger," he said, "you have heard the evidence against you regarding the crimes of which you are accused. Have you anything to say in your defense?"

Harry turned and looked at Hermione. She was the smart one, of course, and would naturally be the one to have something to say. But Harry was surprised to find both Hermione and Ron looking intently at him, expecting him to be the one to talk. He wasn't sure whether this was because he was accused of the worst of the crimes, or because they were still mad about what he had said in the letter to Sirius (or maybe both).

_"Don't you have anything to say?"_ he whispered to Hermione.

_"No, you,"_ she replied a bit shakily. _"Just- just tell them what happened."_Evidently it was up to him.

And so Harry rose to his feet, with his mind still a complete blank, reeling from his humiliation at the hands of Lucius and his witnesses, and especially from the shock of seeing Percy taking the stand against him. He hesitated.

"Well, Mr. Potter?" Lucius prompted.

_I've got to think!_Harry thought madly. _What was it that I was going to say? I know I'd thought of something… What was it? … What_was _it?_

"Mr. Potter…?"

_"Just tell them what happened,"_Hermione insisted.

_Oh yeah,_Harry remembered, i_t was just that all I could do was tell the truth, and let whatever happens, happen… tell the truth… truth…_

And, just before Lucius could annoy him with another interruption, Harry cleared his throat and said something that surprised even himself.

"Veritaserum."

Harry paused for a moment, trying to reconstruct why it had suddenly seemed to make so much sense for him to mention the strongest truth potion known to Professor Snape, or presumably to any other wizard. Lucius Malfoy looked stunned- too stunned even to interrupt Harry while he gathered his thoughts.

"I know," Harry continued, "that a lot of you don't want to believe me. I know that Lord Voldemort being back scares some of you so much- like Mr. Fudge- that you'd rather believe just about anything else. You'd rather believe that I'm a murderer than that the Dark Lord is back.

"Objection!" interrupted Lucius. "The defendant is trying to incite the crowd by using the Dark Lord's proper name."

"Sustained," confirmed the judge. "The use of the Dark Lord's name in the courtroom was forbidden by the Ministry in 1975. All persons must refer to him as 'You-Know-Who,' or by some similar appellation."

Harry continued. "So I'm asking for Professor Snape to give me some Veritaserum- that truth potion that he has- so you can all know that I'm telling the truth."

He paused for a moment at this. _Hey, wait a second- did I just say I trusted Snape to make a potion for me here?_But he had no time to ponder the irrationality of his own statement. He was committed to going ahead with it now.

"Of course I know I might accidentally tell everybody a few embarrassing secrets-" (there was some snickering in the audience at this, some harsh but some sympathetic) "but, well, let's face it, I think I've pretty much told everybody every embarrassing secret that I have anyway." (More snickering, again with varying degrees of sympathy.)

"But even so, I'd like to take some. It's the only way I can convince anybody. You can give me Veritaserum and ask me about cursing Malfoy- er, Draco Malfoy, and his friends on the train. I'll tell you that the reason why we did it is because Malfoy called Hermione a Mudblood and Ron a Muggle-lover, and said, 'They'll be the first to go, now the Dark Lord's back.' And then he said, 'Well- second- Diggory was the first.' "

The crowd gasped. Lucius started to say, "Objection, your ho-," but Harry continued, "Give me Veritaserum, and I'll tell you Sirius is innocent. I'll tell you how I saw Worm- I mean, Peter Pettigrew, who the Dark Lord calls Wormtail, still alive, and how Pettigrew killed those twelve Muggles, cut off his finger, transformed into a rat, and disappeared into the sewer with all the other rats."

Lucius didn't miss his chance this time. "Objection, your honor! The defendant is making an unverifiable claim. He knows that truth potions are not permitted in wizarding courts, and that therefore his statements cannot be proven or disproven."

Harry hadn't known this at all. He looked at Hermione, who nodded sadly at him. Meanwhile, Judge Thorne banged his gavel and droned, "Sustained. Because truth potions have been ineffective on insane persons who falsely believe themselves to be telling the truth, their use was banned in courts of law by the Wizards' Council in 1639. The defendant's references to Veritaserum are to be stricken from the record."

Harry paused, not sure what to say next. Ron whispered, "Just keep going." Harry grinned briefly but thankfully at Ron, and continued.

"But if I _could_take Veritaserum, I'd tell you exactly the same thing I'm telling you now, about the night of June the twenty-fourth. I'd tell you how the Triwizard Cup turned out to be a Portkey which took me to this old cemetery. I'd tell you how I saw this ugly thing that turned out to be Volde- okay, _You-Know-Who's_ temporary body, and how Pettigrew killed Cedric"- Harry swallowed- "on the Dark Lord's orders. I'll tell you how Pettigrew used my blood to give V- the Dark Lord his body back."

"Objection! The defendant is continuing to make references to Veritaserum!"

Down came the gavel. "_Sustained._Mr. Potter, you are out of order."

But Harry didn't care. This was his one chance to say what he had to say, and he wasn't about to stop now. "Well then, how about you, Mr. Malfoy? Why don't _you_ take some Veritaserum, and tell us all what happened on the night of June the twenty-fourth?"

The crowd gave its biggest collective gasp yet. Lucius seemed to be trying to object again, while Ron, who apparently had finally forgotten his anger at Harry's letter, whispered _"Yeah, Harry! You've got him now!"_

"Why don't you tell everybody about the Dark Mark that appeared on your left arm that evening? Tell us, Mr. Malfoy, how you Apparated to join your Master in the cemetery. Tell us how you saw Pettigrew there. Tell us what Vol- what the Dark Lord said to you-" (Harry imitated Voldemort's high, cold voice) _"_ _'Lucius, my slippery friend, I am told that you have not renounced the old ways, though to the world you present a respectable face?' "_

"OBJECTION!" Lucius was shouting now to make himself heard over the crowd. "I am here as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement! I am NOT on trial here!"

"SUSTAINED!"

"I DON'T CARE," shouted Harry, almost lost in the noise now. He felt a wand tapping his throat and heard Hermione's voice saying, "_Sonorus,_" and nodded his thanks to her. "I'M TELLING THE TRUTH, AND YOU CAN SUSTAIN ALL THE OBJECTIONS YOU LIKE!" Harry rather enjoyed the feeling of being able to boom his voice over the crowd. He also was a bit surprised to realize how grown-up his voice sounded.

_"Truth! Truth! Truth!"_ someone in the crowd began chanting, in what sounded like either Fred's voice or George's.

"HOW ABOUT AVERY!" Harry boomed in his new magically enhanced voice. "WHY DOESN'T HE TAKE SOME VERITASERUM AND TELL US HOW THE DARK LORD TORTURED HIM WITH THE CRUCIATUS CURSE FOR THIRTEEN YEARS OF UNFAITHFULNESS?"

"OBJECTION!" roared Lucius. He had evidently used the _Sonorus_charm on his voice box too. Judge Thorne was pounding his gavel to no effect. Meanwhile, the chant of "_Truth! Truth! Truth!_" continued. Harry glanced over at the crowd, and saw that Bill, Charlie, the three girls from the Gryffindor Quidditch team, and several others had joined Fred and George in cheering him on. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were both beaming, and even Ginny was looking out and seeming to enjoy the scene. A short distance away, Dumbledore nodded encouragingly at Harry, although Moody and Fletcher had apparently been removed from the courtroom after the previous disturbance. Harry grinned and gathered another breath.

"MR. MACNAIR! YOU, IN THE JURY BOX! TELL THEM WHAT VOLDEMORT SAID TO YOU! _'MACNAIR… DESTROYING DANGEROUS BEASTS FOR THE MINISTRY? YOU'LL HAVE BETTER VICTIMS SOON. LORD VOLDEMORT WILL PROVIDE!'_ "

"_Truth! Truth! Truth!_" continued Harry's friends. But there was lots of angry shouting in the crowd too, and one or two curses were starting to fly again.

"I ASK THE JURY," bellowed Lucius, "IF THEY BELIEVE, AS I DO, THAT THESE CRIMES DESERVE FIFTEEN DAYS' DETENTION AT THE MINISTRY FOR RONALD WEASLEY AND HERMIONE GRANGER, AND FOR HARRY POTTER, LIFE IN AZKABAN!"

Mr. Macnair raised his hand. So did the eleven others with him. Hermione and Ron looked at Harry in horror. The chanting of "Truth!" from Harry's friends turned to an angry but incoherent shouting, and a horrible chill spread through Harry's bones as the sound of his mother's dying screams began to fill his mind. He fell forward on the ground, calling out as long as he could, "_I WAS TELLING THE TRUTH!_ THE TRUTH! The truth! the truth… the truth…. the truth…."

And a cold and clammy hand clamped itself on his right wrist, and the last moments of Lily Potter's life drowned out every coherent thought in her son's mind as the Dementors took hold of him and dragged him out of the courtroom to be taken to the island prison of Azkaban.


	5. Chapter 5

_"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off-"_

_A door opening…a woman screaming… a man's indistinct shouting…a cold-sounding cackle…_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

_"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"_

_"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."_

_"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"_

_"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"_

…_A cackle of high-pitched laughter…_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

…_cold… very cold… a dim morning light…_

_"Aaahhh! Vernon! Come and look at this!"_

_"Hrrm? Yes? What_is_it, Petunia?"_

…_heavy footsteps pounding…_

_"Look! They- those- look at the doorstep, Vernon!"_

_"That's not… it can't be…"_

…_the sound of something rustling…_

_"Read this, Vernon! My freak of a sister! She's gone and gotten herself killed-her and that dratted husband of hers both- and they leave her filthy son with us! Of all the nerve-"_

_"They can't. This can't be- We'll take him to the orphanage as soon as it opens…_

_"Those- look at this letter! Read it! A curse…! They've stuck us with him, Vernon!"_

_"Well, of all the-"_

…_more shouting… the feeling of being roughly carried…_

_"In you go, boy."_

_The sound of a cupboard door closing… and darkness._

_"It all comes down to blood… bad blood will out… your sister was a bad egg… then she ran off with a wastrel and here's the result right in front of us… This Potter- you never told me what he did?"_

_"He- didn't work. Unemployed."_

_"As I expected! A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who-"_

_"He was not."_

_"Go on, boy, go on. Proud of your parents, are you? They go and get themsevles killed in a car crash (drunk, I expect)-"_

_"They didn't die in a car crash!"_

_"They died in a car crash, you nasty little liar, and left you to be a burned on their decent, hardworking relatives! You are an insolent, ungrateful little-"_

_A cemetery… a short man in a hooded cloak, with something in a bundle of robes…_

_"Kill the spare."_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

_"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"_

_"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."_

_"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"_

_"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"_

…_A cackle of high-pitched laughter…_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

A cold floor… a cold, hard, dirt floor…

_Darkness… boarded windows… a shack…_

_"You should have realized… if Voldemort didn't kill you, we would. Good-bye, Peter."_

_"NO! You can't kill him, you can't… We'll take him up to the castle. We'll hand him over to the Dementors… he can go to Azkaban… but don't kill him."_

_Darkness… an unmoving willow tree… a castle in the distance… a cloud shifting… moonlight…_

_"Oh, my- he didn't take his potion tonight! He's not safe!"_

_"Run… Run. Now… Leave it to me. RUN!"_

_A wolf's snarls… a dog's warning barks…_

_"Expelliarmus! Stay where you are!"_

_A howl… a growl…_

_"Sirius, he's gone! Pettigrew transformed!"_

A cold, hard, dirt floor… grey stone walls… grey light through a window… _Is this Azkaban?_

_Indoors… the grey walls of a cell… an old man with sober blue eyes…_

_"…It is my expectation that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement will seek to have you sent to Azkaban. I do not know for how long; that will depend on the timing of when Voldemort plans to release the Dementors."_

_"I ASK THE JURY… IF THEY BELIEVE, AS I DO, THAT THESE CRIMES DESERVE FIFTEEN DAYS' DETENTION AT THE MINISTRY FOR RONALD WEASLEY AND HERMIONE GRANGER, AND FOR HARRY POTTER, LIFE IN AZKABAN!"_

_So I'm in Azkaban…this is what Azkaban is like… with all the Dementors… I've got to keep my sanity… Sirius did it by transforming… but I can't transform… I can't transform…_

_A howl… a growl…_

_"Sirius, he's gone! Pettigrew transformed!"_

_"…We'd better get up to the castle and tell someone. Come-"_

_Yelping… whining… a dog in pain…_

_"Sirius."_

_"Nooo… nooo… please…"_

_"Hermione! Try to think of something happy! Expecto patronum! Expecto patronum!"_

_"Expecto- expecto- expecto-"_

_"EXPECTO PATRONUM! EXPECTO PATRONUM! Expecto- expecto patronum- expecto patronum- no, no, he's innocent… expecto- expecto patronum…"_

_A rattling breath like an evil wind… a tall, dark hooded figure lowering its hood… a black face with a gaping hole for a mouth… a pair of strong, clammy hands lifting him upwards… putrid breath on his face…_

Darkness… had a whole day gone past? _How many days have I been here? Am I going to spend my whole life here? … Or is Voldemort going to come for me here? I've got to defend myself… Where's my wand? … They took my wand… And Voldemort will have his wand… and the Dementors… the Dementors…_

_"The Dementors will join us… they are our natural allies… we will recall the banished giants… I shall have all my devoted servants returned to me, and an army of creatures whom all fear…_

_"Harry Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call him my guest of honor…_

_"…but no matter… I can touch him now…_

_"I wanted Harry Potter's blood. I wanted the blood of the one who had stripped me of power thirteen years ago…_

_"…and here he is… the boy you all believed had been my downfall…_Crucio!_"_

…_a blinding pain throughout every cell of his body…_

A dim grey light… it was day again… _My mouth is dry… I feel weak…_

A hunk of bread and a dish of water… _Got to eat… got to force myself to eat… got to keep my sanity…_

_The bread is dry… got to eat it anyway… got to drink the water… can't let myself go mad in here…_

_How did Sirius do it? …He knew he was innocent… I know I'm innocent… got to think of that…I know I told the truth… they said I was a liar… I told the truth…_

_"Here- you've earned a drink- something from the Three Broomsticks. You won't have tried it before-"_

_"Butterbeer! Yeah, I like that stuff!"_

…_a man's raised eyebrows …a twinge of guilt… he had to come up with something…_

_"…Oh- Ron and Hermione brought me some back from Hogsmeade…"_

_"Potter! Weasley! What are you doing?"_

_"We were- we were going to- to go and see-"_

…_he had to come up with something…_

_"Hermione."_

_A dimly lit dungeon… a man with greasy black hair and a threatening voice…_

_"Mr. Malfoy has just been to see me with a strange story…_

_"Mr. Malfoy then saw an extraordinary apparition. Can you imagine what it might have been, Potter?"_

_"No."_

_"It was your head, Potter. Floating in midair."_

_"Maybe he'd better go to Madam Pomfrey, if he's seeing things like-"_

_"What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter? Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade."_

_"I know that. It sounds like Malfoy's having hallucin-"_

_"Malfoy is not having hallucinations. If your head was in Hogsmeade, so was the rest of you."_

_"I've been up in Gryffindor tower. Like you told-"_

_"Can anyone confirm that?"_

_"…How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter… He too was exceedingly arrogant… Strutting around the place… the resemblance between you is uncanny… Your father didn't set much store by rules either… Rules were for lesser mortals… I would hate for you to run away with a false idea of your father, Potter… Have you been imagining some act of glorious heroism? Then let me correct you… There was nothing brave about what he did. He was saving his own skin…"_

_"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off-"_

_A door opening…a woman screaming… a man's indistinct shouting …a cold-sounding cackle…_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

Daylight… had it been dark? had it just seemed that way because of the Dementors? the days all seemed to be blurring together… And the memories… terrible memories… he had heard that Azkaban could drive someone insane… but he had never imagined it could be like this… one memory after another… how many days had it been? He couldn't remember… there was bread and water… he had to eat… he had to keep his mind…

_"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"_

_"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."_

_"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"_

_"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"_

…_A cackle of high-pitched laughter…_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

Darkness again… he was slumped against a wall in the corner of his cell… _Got to keep my mind… it's terrible in here… I'm innocent… I told the truth… I'm innocent… I didn't kill Cedric… I didn't kill Cedric…_

_A stormy day… thick grey clouds… a torrent of rain… fourteen teenagers on broomsticks… a golden flash up ahead… a tall boy racing him for it… a sudden cold silence… a hundred tall, dark, hooded figures… and falling, falling…_

_"We didn't- lose?"_

_"Diggory got the Snitch. Right after you fell…"_

_"Wangoballwime?"_

_"Sorry?"_

_"D'you- d'you want to go to the ball with me?"_

_"Oh! Oh, Harry, I'm really sorry. I've already said I'll go with someone else."_

_"Oh… Oh, okay, no problem."_

_"I'm really sorry."_

_"That's okay."_

_"Well-"_

_"Yeah."_

_"Well, 'bye."_

… _footsteps walking away…_

_"Who're you going with?"_

_"Cedric Diggory."_

_Darkness… a dimly-lit path… hedges all around… a gleaming cup… a tall boy…_

_"Take it, then… Go on, take it. You're there."_

_"You take it. You should win. That's twice you've saved my neck in here."_

_"That's not how it's supposed to work… the one who reaches the cup first gets the points. That's you. I'm telling you, I'm not going to win any races on this leg."_

_"No."_

_"Stop being noble. Just take it, and then we can get out of here…"_

_"Go on."_

…_silence…_

_"Both of us."_

_"What?"_

_"We'll take it at the same time. It's still a Hogwarts victory. We'll tie for it."_

_"You- you sure?"_

_"Yeah… we both got here. Let's just take it together."_

_"You're on. Come here."_

_"On three, right? … One- two- three-"_

_A jerk behind the navel… a howl of wind and swirling color… slamming into the ground…_

_A dark graveyard… a distant house on a hillside…_

_"Wands out, d'you reckon?"_

_"Yeah…"_

_A short man… a strange bundle of robes… a sudden, terrible pain in his forehead…_

_"Kill the spare."_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

Daylight… _got to eat… got to drink water… didn't seem to help much… still feel awful… I think I'm losing it…how many days has it been?_

A voice of a woman… she sounded like a lunatic… _"The Darrrrrk Lorrrrrrd will riiiiiiise agaaaaaaain… The Darrrrrk Lorrrrrrd will riiiiiiise agaaaaaaain…"_

Had he heard that woman's voice before? … Where had he heard it before? … _Voldemort's coming… he's coming… got to be ready… how can I be ready? it's all I can do to keep from going batty in here… got to hold on… but how can I be ready for Voldemort?_

_An underground chamber… a man with a foul-smelling purple turban… a man's unnaturally high-pitched voice…_

_"Let me speak to him… face-to-face…"_

_"Master, you are not strong enough!"_

_"I have strength enough… for this…"_

_The man unwrapping his turban… a face… a face where the back of the man's head should have been…_

_"Harry Potter… see what I have become? Mere shadow and vapor… once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own… Don't be a fool… or you'll meet the same fate as your parents… they died begging me for mercy…"_

_"LIAR!"_

_"How touching… I always value bravery… Yes, boy, your parents were brave… I killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight… but your mother needn't have died… she was trying to protect you… Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain."_

_"NEVER!"_

_"SEIZE HIM!"_

_A strong hand on his wrist… a needle-sharp pain in his forehead… pain, pain…_

_I* * * * *_

_Another chamber, deeper underground… a red-haired girl, lying still, near death…_

_"Ginny! Ginny- don't be dead- please don't be dead-"_

_"She won't wake."_

_A dark-haired boy with a hazy appearance…_

_"I have many questions for you, Harry Potter…"_

_"Why do you care how I escaped? Voldemort was after your time…"_

_"Voldemort… is my past, present, and future. Harry Potter…"_

…_letters form, and rearrange themselves to spell …_

_I AM LORD VOLDEMORT._

_I* * * * *_

_Darkness… a steaming cauldron… a short man standing by it… a tall, thin man with a snakelike face rising out of it…_

_"Robe me."_

… _a high, cold laugh… the tall man looks at something on the short man's arm…_

_"It is back… they will all have noticed it… and now, we shall see… now we shall know…"_

…_he touches the other man's arm… and pain, burning pain…_

_Voldemort's coming… I'll be helpless… I've got no wand, or… anything… somebody's got to rescue me… maybe Dumbledore or somebody… or Sirius…_

_A dark evening… a shack… a skeletally thin, dark-haired, threatening-looking man…_

_"There's only going to one murder here tonight…"_

_"Why's that? Didn't care last time, did you? …What's the matter, gone soft in Azkaban?"_

_"Harry! Be quiet!"_

_"HE KILLED MY MUM AND DAD!"_

_A struggle… wands sensing sparks past his face… a hand on his throat…_

_"No… I've waited too long…"_

_A kick… A grunt of pain… A cat sinking its claws into his arm…_

_"NO YOU DON'T! … Get out of the way!"_

_"Going to kill me, Harry?"_

_"You killed my parents."_

_"I don't deny it…."_

_A grey room, indoors… blank walls… a tall, white-haired man with a hard look in his blue eyes…_

_"…the three of you stand accused of attacking young Draco Malfoy and his friends._

_"Tell me, Harry, did you do this?_

_"Tell me, Harry. Why did you do this?_

_"… In a war right feelings are not enough. Right actions are necessary as well. And I hope that you have realized that by your actions you have allowed the enemies of the truth- both those who are willful liars and those who are willfully ignorant- the opportunity to score their greatest triumph since Lord Voldemort's return to his body."_

_Descending a staircase in a castle… walking through a doorway… a short, bitter-looking man with an unpleasant gleam in his eye…_

_"Well, well, well… we_are_in trouble."_

_An angry woman with square spectacles and her hair in a stern bun…_

_"I would never have believed it of any of you… Mr. Filch says you were up in the astronomy tower… It is one o'clock in the morning…_Explain yourselves_."_

_Silence…_

_"I think I've got a good idea what's going on… I'm disgusted… I've never heard of such a thing before… As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this… fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."_

_"Fifty?"_

_"Fifty points_each_… Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."_

_An office in a school… an angry woman… a vindictive-looking man… flames in the fireplace…_

_"Sit… explain…"_

_"Why didn't you send us a letter by owl? I believe_you_have an owl?"_

_"I- I didn't think-"_

_"_That_… is obvious."_

_A knock on the door… a tall, white-haired man…_

_Silence…_

_"Please explain why you did this…"_

_"I must also warn you that if you do anything like this again, I will have no choice but to expel you."_

_"Don't expect me to cover up for you again, Harry. I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the Dementors draw near you would have more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them- gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks."_

_"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off-"_

_A door opening…a woman screaming… a man's indistinct shouting …a cold-sounding cackle…_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

_"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"_

_"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."_

_"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"_

_"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"_

…_A cackle of high-pitched laughter…_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

Darkness again…another day had gone by… Voldemort was coming… the madwoman was still calling out about him… _"The Darrrrrk Lorrrrrrd will riiiiiiise agaaaaaaain" … I can't face Voldemort like this… I can't keep my mind… I'm going mad… I need help… I need somebody to rescue me… I have friends… they've got to rescue me…_

_"I ASK THE JURY… IF THEY BELIEVE, AS I DO, THAT THESE CRIMES DESERVE FIFTEEN DAYS' DETENTION AT THE MINISTRY FOR RONALD WEASLEY AND HERMIONE GRANGER, AND FOR HARRY POTTER, LIFE IN AZKABAN!"_

_"Don't you_care_about Gryffindor, do you_only _care about yourselves,_I _don't want Slytherin to win the house cup, and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells… I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed- or worse, expelled. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."_

_"Oh, side with Ron, I knew you would! First the Firebolt, now Scabbers, everything's my fault, isn't it! Just leave me alone, Harry, I've got a lot of work to do!"_

_"So… congratulations."_

_"What d'you mean, congratulations?"_

_"Well… no one else got across the Age Line. What did you use- the Invisibility Cloak?"_

_"The Invisibility Cloak wouldn't have got me over that line."_

_"Oh right… I thought you might've told me if it was the cloak… but you found another way, did you?"_

_"Listen, I didn't put my name in that goblet. Someone else must've done it."_

_"What would they do that for?"_

_"I dunno."_

_"It's okay, you know, you can tell_me_the truth. If you don't want everyone else to know, fine, but I don't know why you're bothering to lie…"_

_"I didn't put my name in that goblet!"_

_"Yeah, okay… only you said this morning you'd have done it last night, and no one would've seen you… I'm not stupid, you know."_

_"You're doing a really good impression of it."_

_"Yeah? You want to get to bed, Harry. I expect you'll need to be up early tomorrow for a photo-call or something."_

Darkness… another day had gone by… Voldemort was coming soon… very soon… he curled up into a ball in the corner… if somebody didn't rescue him, he'd be a goner… _Have I made everybody I've ever known hate me?_

_A courtroom… a man's smooth yet malicious voice…_

_"Mr. Potter's letter to Mr. Black will now be read before the court, so that it may be properly entered in the court records as evidence of Mr. Potter's crime…_

_"There's one girl that I liked, Cho Chang, but she liked another guy, and that was Cedric Diggory…"_

_A strangled choking noise… Footsteps headed for the exit…_

_"…Ron's little sister Ginny… but I've never really felt like that about her… She really acted weird around me in her first year…"_

_A muffled sob in the audience…_

_"After what happened with Neville's parents…"_

_"If anything, she and Ron might like each other, but don't tell them I said that…"_

_A boy and a girl glaring…_

_"Parvati Patil, from Gryffindor in my year, but there's nothing going on there. It was kind of bad, I suppose I should have danced with her more at the ball…_

_"I suppose I ought to be ready for it and not be such a total prat as I was last year… I suppose this has been a totally stupid letter…"_

Perhaps there was nobody that cared about him… perhaps Voldemort would come and kill him, and that would be fine with everyone… it would be fine… nobody would miss him… everybody would be better off without him… there was no reason to resist… his parents were dead, and nobody else cared…

_"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off-"_

_A door opening…a woman screaming… a man's indistinct shouting …a cold-sounding cackle…_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

_"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"_

_"Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside, now…."_

_"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead-"_

_"Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"_

…_A cackle of high-pitched laughter…_

_"Avada Kedavra."_

Daylight… another day… who knew how long it had been, everything was blurred together… when was Voldemort coming? …_They've brought me bread and water again… did I remember to eat yesterday? … I don't know… I don't care… I'd just as soon starve to death as be killed by Voldemort… it won't make any difference to anybody anyway… I won't bother eating… it's not like anybody will care… nobody would care… nobody would care…_

Harry's mind seemed to be clearing. Where were the Dementors? Had they gone somewhere? There seemed to be some shouting outside… but no, he didn't care… there was no reason to care… he curled himself into a tighter ball in the corner of his cell…

"Harry!"

A voice at the window… but he didn't move… he didn't care… nobody would care…

"Hurry up, Harry!"

The voice again… this time he looked up… a reddish blur at the window… he wiped the moisture out of his eyes, and adjusted his glasses for the first time in who knew how many days…

"Harry, _come on!_Don't you want to be _rescued?!"_

It was Ginny Weasley.


	6. Chapter 6

"Ginny! Wh- wha- whryoudoinhere?" It was the first time Harry had used his voice in a long time except for a few strangled moans, and he broke off in a fit of coughing.

"I've come here on holiday. Seemed like a nice warm spot to spend the summer. No, _come on,_ Harry, what did you think? Now hurry up, the Dementors won't wait all day."

Harry struggled to crawl to the window. Perhaps he should have eaten something after all. Ginny made an impatient noise in her throat. "Harry, we haven't got- oh, bother this- _Alohomora!_" The iron bars at the window swung open. "Ha! Guess they didn't think to charm-proof it._Wingardium Leviosa!_" Harry was surprised to find himself levitated about five feet into the air, to the level of the window. "_Accio Harry!_" Ginny finished, and Harry involuntarily zoomed out the window to where Ginny was standing on the ground outside. She had to put her arms up to stop his momentum; if he hadn't spent the previous couple weeks on a near-starvation diet, he would likely have knocked her over. His arms and legs felt like spaghetti, and she had to hold him by his shoulders to keep him standing up.

Ginny laughed, although hurriedly. "Bet you didn't know I was so good at Summoning Charms. Most people can't do that with another person._Fortio."_She pointed her wand at him again, and he felt a bit of strength entering his legs, just barely enough to stand up with. "Here, eat this." She stuffed a slab of Honeydukes' Extra-Luxurious Chocolate ("Melts in Your Mouth, Not All Over Your Face", said the wrapper) into Harry's mouth, and he swallowed it and felt stronger again. He nodded at her. "Okay, what now?"

"Now? Now we rejoin the others, of course."

"Others?"

Harry looked up- and what he saw took his breath away.

He was near one end of an island, with about thirty feet of rocky ground on a descending slope between him and the sea.

Standing on a rock at the edge of the sea, some distance away, was a boy- it was _Neville Longbottom_- waving his wand at some sort of plants, which appeared to be spreading rapidly across the ground. At least three Dementors were on the ground, ensnared in the newly-formed undergrowth.

Further away, toward the opposite end of the island, there seemed to be a good deal of commotion. Three girls on broomsticks- they looked like Angelina, Alicia, and Katie, the Chasers on Harry's house Quidditch team- were swooping in toward a large group of Dementors and out to sea. There was also what looked like a white owl- _Hedwig!_Something more was happening on the ground at that end, but Harry couldn't tell what it was.

Meanwhile, something seemed to be repeatedly exploding and knocking down Dementors at that end of the island. Harry looked out to sea to see where the explosions were coming from- and there were Fred and George Weasley, floating on a flying carpet and directing something with their wands also.

As Harry stood transfixed by the scene, Ginny prodded him. "Come on, we've got to hurry. The Dementors might come."

"All- all right…"

They walked as quickly as Harry's weak legs could manage toward the water. "Neville!" Ginny screamed. "I've got him!" Neville turned and waved his arms frantically in the direction of Fred and George, signaling for them to come. "Hurry," Ginny reminded Harry again. (Harry didn't think he needed to be reminded again, but decided it would be ungrateful to say so.)

_I can't believe this_, thought Harry. _We're going to escape. We're really going to escape. As long as no more Dementors-_

Immediately he regretted thinking it. A group of five or six Dementors emerged from behind a large boulder ahead of them on the path. _"Oh, no!"_moaned Ginny. "I should have known this would happen!"

"Ginny. Your wand," demanded Harry. He knew what to do. There was no time for niceties. "Give me your wand. Please."

Ginny hesitated a moment, and then reached into her pocket for her wand and handed it to Harry. Harry thought of escaping Azkaban once and for all and celebrating at the Burrow with Ginny and all the others, and rejoining Ron and Hermione- _"Expecto Patronum!"_

A great silvery something burst from Ginny's wand in Harry's hands. But something was wrong- it wasn't the shape of the stag that Harry was used to producing in these cases. It appeared to have partly-formed wings, and its legs were too short. The awkward Patronus stumbled toward the cluster of Dementors, hesitated for a while, and disappeared.

"Ginny!" Harry thrust the wand back into her hands. "It won't work right for me with someone else's wand. You do it. Think of something happy._'Expecto Patronum.'_"

_"Expecto- Expecto Patronum,"_ said Ginny uncertainly. A small silver mist appeared from the wand, and disappeared. The Dementors were marching toward them again.

"Think of something happy. _'Expecto Patronum.'_"

_"Expecto Patronum,"_ Ginny tried again, and this time the silver mist formed itself a little better before disappearing. The Dementors were getting closer. Harry looked up for the flying carpet, but Fred and George were still at the other end of the island doing something, he couldn't tell what. There wasn't much more time.

"Ginny. Think of the happiest thing you can possibly think of. Concentrate on it with all your mind. Then say, _'Expecto Patronum.'_" _This has to work,_Harry thought, _we really need help, we need some kind of help…_

Ginny looked a bit flustered. Then she appeared to be setting her face in concentration. The Dementors were only a few feet away- Harry tried to block out the sound of his mother's dying screams- suddenly he heard something else, a wordless song that seemed to strengthen every cell in his body- Ginny seemed to notice it too- she took a deep breath- a look of incredible blissful peace spread across her face- she looked like an angel- _"Expecto Patronum!"_

A great silvery-white bird burst from the end of Ginny's wand. It circled around the Dementors, driving them away from her. The Dementors moved away- they moved in the direction of Neville, who had been clambering over the rocks at the water's edge toward Harry and Ginny- and the Patronus soared in between, protecting Neville also. And then another bird appeared, and Harry knew where he had heard the wordless song before.

It was Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore's phoenix. And Ginny's Patronus was also a phoenix.

The two majestic birds, one real and one conjured, continued to circle around the pack of Dementors, driving them, driving them down, down into the water. With a _Sploosh! Sploosh! Splooshshshsshsh!_the Dementors disappeared below the surface of the icy waters and were never seen again.

Fawkes and Ginny's Patronus then flew back to her, where Neville had finally reached her and Harry. Ginny reached out her hand to touch the Patronus, and it disappeared. She looked a bit crestfallen. "Don't worry, that always happens," Harry reassured her.

But Fawkes was still very much real, and hovered by Harry as if making an offer. Harry and Ginny both remembered how this worked, and Harry grabbed Fawkes' tail feathers with one hand and Ginny's hand with the other. Ginny then offered her other hand to Neville, and a lightness spread through all three of them as they soared through the air- Harry with a sudden and complete feeling of relief, Ginny with a look of thrilled excitement, and Neville apparently with stunned disbelief- as they soared back out to meet Fred, George, and the others at the flying carpet. One last pack of Dementors had come back to the end of the island near Harry's cell, but they didn't come close to catching them. Harry Potter had escaped from Azkaban.

Harry, Ginny, and Neville tumbled onto the flying carpet as Fawkes set them down. Harry looked around and saw Fred, George, Alicia, Angelina, and Katie all grinning back at him, looking excited but exhausted. Fred turned and yanked on the edge of the carpet, sending it speeding up and away from the prison island on a homeward trajectory. Harry looked down from the other teenagers and saw, to his great surprise, a pair of house-elves- _Dobby and Winky!_- smiling and bowing to him. And then- _Crookshanks?-_ an orange-colored cat whom Harry recognized as Hermione's leaped into Ginny's arms and looked at Harry. Harry felt something feathery in his arms, and looked down and recognized his own Hedwig, hooting affectionately at him. And rounding out the group was Ron's miniature owl Pidwidgeon, fluttering and hooting with his usual excitement. No- not quite his usual excitement; he seemed more subdued than usual in the presence of the phoenix, while Hedwig kept looking at Fawkes, her usual pride replaced by bashfulness, as if looking for a sign of approval from the noble bird.

Harry found that his lungs were heaving, taking in great gasps of air. Not so much from the exertion of the escape, or from the excitement, as that it felt like he had never tasted fresh air before. He didn't know whether the air actually was poisoned in the island prison, or whether it just seemed that way because of the Dementors. Perhaps it didn't really make that much difference. In any case, Harry had never felt like this before. It reminded him of the night when Hagrid came and told him that he was a wizard, and he had found out that he could escape the Dursleys and live in a world where he actually belonged. But no- Azkaban had been far worse than Privet Drive before Hogwarts. At the Dursleys' he had never known that there was any other life than the one that he lived. But in Azkaban he had known joy before, and it had been taken from him and replaced with unending misery more intense than Privet Drive could ever have dreamed of being. And now, to have that back was the most wonderful thing in the world.

Harry looked around at his rescuers- seven humans, two elves, and four animals. He couldn't- he couldn't believe that they would do this for him. He had just spent some unknown number of days thinking of how everyone seemed to hate him, and now his friends- and not even his _best_friends, either- had risked their lives, or at least their sanity, to rescue him. "Wh- why- I don't understand," he choked out. "Why would you- why would you do this for me?"

George's face broke into something between a grin and a smirk. "Well, Harry," he replied, "I think you'd better ask little sis about that one. This was all _her_ idea, you ought to know."

Harry looked curiously, and a bit awkwardly, at Ginny, who blushed and didn't meet his eyes. "No," she said, "it's not- it wasn't- well, it was like this." She took a deep breath and began to tell her story.

"Well, you see, it started with Professor Dumbledore.

"After that- that _trial_- I guess- well, I guess I was pretty mad at you for a while there. Not just about- about Mr. Malfoy- well, that too, but- well, what you _said_, Harry…"

Harry thought for a moment. "You mean the letter?"

Ginny nodded unhappily. "Yes. _That._" She took a breath. "I mean- I know you didn't mean it the way it came out, and it wasn't your fault that it got read up there in front of everybody, but-" Another breath. "Mum kept telling me that I shouldn't be angry with you, that you'd never had a father you could talk to, that you didn't have any other way of talking to someone about these things, that I wouldn't want some of the things I've talked ab-" She stopped. "Well- anyway- but I knew she was right, but I was still pretty angry. I mean, I hope you understand, but- but that's how it was."

Harry felt awful. "Ginny- I'm sorry- I didn't mean-"

"Yes, I know you didn't mean it, I'm just saying, think of how some other people must have felt, okay?"

Harry nodded. He figured he already knew how quite a lot of people had felt about that stupid letter of his, but didn't want to argue the point.

"You should have heard her," Fred chimed in. _"Why do boys always have to be such_stupid_gits?!"_he mimicked in a remarkably good imitation of Ginny's voice.

"Fred!" Ginny turned around to slap him, as Fred turned away and went back to steering the carpet. Harry shot Fred a brief warning look; Ginny hadn't sounded like she thought it was funny.

"So anyway-" Ginny stopped to regain her composure. "After a few days, Professor Dumbledore came to see my mum and dad at the Burrow. They were talking pretty late into the night, and I'd been shutting up in my room, but then I decided to come down for a drink of water.

"But when I got to the bottom of the staircase, I decided to stop and listen, because maybe it wasn't something I wanted to interrupt. And they were- they were talking about- about You-Know-Who. Only Dumbledore called him- you know…"

"Voldemort," said Harry. Everyone else cringed, and Winky put her hands over as much of her ears as they would cover. "Ginny," he added and looked intently at her until she met his eyes. "I've met him and survived, and so have you, in the Chamber of Secrets. You can call him Voldemort."

"But Harry- you don't understand-"

"I do understand. Dumbledore says being scared of saying it just makes us more scared of- of him. That goes for all of you," he added, looking around at the others.

Ginny swallowed hard. Fawkes (how much _did_that bird understand, anyway?) flew over to Ginny and nestled against her, cooing softly. Ginny took a breath. "Okay- _Voldemort._" She sat in silence for a moment, as if adjusting to the reality that she had actually said the name. George stared at his sister, his eyes almost as big as Dobby's.

"Right then- go ahead," Harry nodded at Ginny. She swallowed again.

"So anyway… so, Dumbledore was talking about- about _Voldemort_" (she swallowed again), and he was saying about how Voldemort wants to recall the Dementors from Azkaban. And he said that he thought when he came with the Death Eaters, the Dementors would all go over to their side, and that he would kill Harry then. And when he said it- he was the only one that I could see through the crack in the kitchen door, although I didn't think he'd seen me- he gives me this _look_ through the crack, almost like he was saying I was supposed to be doing something about it.

"After that, I- I felt like I should go back to bed, like Dumbledore was saying I had heard everything I was supposed to hear. I couldn't get to sleep for _hours_, honestly, it was like all I could think about was how to get you out of there."

"And _we_ know why that is," teased George. "_She_ wanted to be the damsel in shining armor, coming to rescue the knight in distress."

"Hey, Gin!" added Fred. "That's what you can make when you open your fashion shop someday. Shining armor for damsels!" Everybody laughed except for Ginny, who buried her head in her hands.

"No, that's not why she did it. It's not what you're thinking," answered Harry. Everyone looked at him, puzzled.

"Dumbledore explained it to me once. It's like, when a witch or wizard saves another's life, it's like there's a connection between them. My father saved Snape's life once when they were students, and from what Dumbledore says, Snape's actually been protecting me even though he hates my guts. So it's probably like, because of what happened in the Chamber of Secrets, Ginny would have tried to rescue me no matter how much she hated me."

Ginny looked a bit embarrassed but nodded. "Well- yeah. I guess…." She looked thoughtful. "I guess that must be why. I mean, I was still kind of mad at you even when I was planning the whole rescue thing."

"So how did you plan it?" Harry asked, curiously.

"Well, you know Fred and George have been doing that Weasley's Wizard Wheezes thing." Harry nodded. "Well, apparently some private investor was actually crazy enough to give them a whole sack of Galleons to get their joke shop going-" (Harry tried hard to keep his face expressionless, not wishing to let Ginny know that she was at that moment speaking to the "private investor" in question) "and they've been making a whole bunch of crazy stuff up in their room, and Mum doesn't even try to stop them anymore.

"So next morning, the first thing I did was ask them if there was anything they could do to defeat the Dementors and get Harry out of there, and they said they might have some ideas."

"Of course we had to tease her properly about it first," Fred called back over his shoulder from the driver's seat of the carpet.

"They were _awful_," muttered Ginny to no one in particular. And then she called back to Fred, a bit more brightly, "I should start teasing _you_ about all those owls _you've_been sending to Angelina." Harry looked at Angelina, who was smiling and looking a bit flattered.

"Nothing to tease about there," Fred countered slyly. "Why would I be embarrassed about sending owls to Angelina, hmm?"

This time Angelina did look a bit bashful. Katie and Alicia giggled. With a sigh, Ginny gave up that line of reasoning and continued. "So then, they also said that Angelina, Alicia, and Katie had been taking Quidditch lessons from Troy, Mullet, and Moran- you know, those witches that play Chaser for Ireland- and might be able to help us out a bit."

"And then I owled a bunch of others, Harry, anybody that I thought might want to help you out. Of course Ron and Hermione couldn't, they don't get out till tomorrow. I sent one to your friend Seamus Finnigan, but he was staying with Dean Thomas, and they both wanted to come, but Dean's parents are Muggles and didn't understand. And Colin and Dennis Creevey _so_ wanted to come, but their parents are Muggles too, and they're really worried about things, Colin even said he wasn't sure if they'd be allowed to come back to Hogwarts next year."

This felt a bit odd to Harry. Colin Creevey and his brother Dennis seemed to worship the ground Harry walked on, and he had always found the unwanted attention a bit annoying. But for them to not be allowed to come to Hogwarts anymore… Harry wasn't sure, but it almost felt like he'd miss them.

"And my Gran doesn't know I'm here," added Neville. "I was sure she'd say no. I just left her a note saying not to worry about me, I was with the Weasleys. I wasn't sure if I should really come or not, since I didn't think she'd want me to. But then I thought, Gran's always wanted me to uphold the family honor, and this was a chance to do it, and if I blew this chance I didn't know if I'd ever get another one." He said this with as firm a look of determination as Harry had ever seen on his face, more so even than the time in their first year when Neville had tried to stop Harry, Ron, and Hermione from trying to find the Philosopher's Stone beneath the third-floor corridor.

"And then," said Ginny, nodding encouragingly at Neville, "we started trying to figure out what to do. I knew Azkaban was somewhere in the North Sea and it was guarded by Dementors, but that was all I knew. Fortunately _some people_-" she indicated the older girls- "were paying attention in fifth-year Defense Against the Dark Arts two years ago, when my stupid brothers were trying to figure out how to make things go bang."

"Hey!" said George, looking wounded. "Making things go bang was an important part of the plan, I'll have you know."

"Yes, but _still,_" Ginny was replying, when Alicia cut in.

"What we learned about Dementors from Professor Lupin," explained Alicia as though detailing a Quidditch strategy, "was that they sense emotion. They can sort of sense animals, although they sense people better. So we had to find some way of making them sense emotion to draw them away from the cells."

"What Katie and Angelina and I did was to keep swooping through on our brooms, and then back out over the water again. That way, they'd sense us, but we'd be moving fast enough that they wouldn't be able to suck enough happiness to throw us off. And besides, flying in formation is enough of a thrill that we could kind of sustain ourselves in spite of what the Dementors were trying to do to us."

"Meanwhile," George continued with a grin, "My esteemed brother Frederick and I had been working on our all-new, amazing, stupendous Flying Firecrackers. Watch this." He picked up a firecracker from the surface of the carpet, and threw it out over the sea. Immediately it transformed into a pigeon, which kept flying slowly forward for about twenty yards before turning back into a firecracker and exploding into a large fireball.

"We made sure they didn't explode while they were still pigeons," Fred added. "_That_would have been inhumane." ("Like _that's_ever stopped them_,_" muttered Ginny darkly.)

"So you see," concluded George, while it's a bird, it has enough emotion to draw a Dementor's attention. And then- _bang!_- no more pigeon… and no more Dementor."

"And what were you doing, Neville?" asked Harry curiously.

"Well, you see," explained Neville, "my Gran has this greenhouse out behind the estate, and I've been working in it over the summers developing different kinds of plants. This summer I'd figured out how to do this mutation of Devil's Snare, so it grows a lot faster and the vines are a lot tougher. Sort of a super-strength version of it. I call it Neville's Snare," he added, with an uncharacteristically devilish grin.

"And it was perfect for Azkaban," Ginny added, nodding encouragingly at Neville again, "because it's cold and damp to begin with, and that's what that kind of plant likes."

"Plus I also borrowed some mooncalf dung from the greenhouse," added Neville in a worried tone. "I hope Gran's not too mad when she finds out…."

"Neville," replied Harry thankfully, "after this… you can tell your Gran I'll buy her all the mooncalf dung she wants."

"And then," Ginny continued, "all of a sudden the house-elves showed up."

"Professor Dumbledore is sending us to see Miss Wheezy and see if she is needing Dobby's and Winky's help with anything," explained Dobby. "And she was! And Miss Wheezy said that Dobby and Winky could come to rescue the great Harry Potter from the terrible prison of Azkaban. Because house-elves is not affected by Dementors the way humans is."

"And you know that house-elves can do this magic thing where they point their finger and make a 'bang', and the person they're pointing at gets blasted back," Ginny added. "And it turns out that works pretty well on Dementors. So there we were: the twins with their firecrackers, the girls on their brooms, the house-elves blasting the Dementors back, and the animals running and flying around confusing the Dementors, while Neville got his plants growing as a barrier to keep the Dementors away while I came and got you from your cell."

"Wow." That was all Harry could say after hearing the story. A bunch of kids, elves, and animals outwitting the most fearsome prison guards in the wizarding world. Who would have thought it?

Another question occurred to Harry. "By the way, how did you all get here?"

"On a Muggle airplane, Harry," Fred called back. "What did you think?"

"No, that's not what I meant, I can see you're on a flying carpet… wait… How _did_you get a flying carpet? Isn't this against your dad's Muggle Protection Act?"

"Ali Bashir," explained George. "Our contact in Saudi Arabia. Rented it from him in exchange for some free test-marketing samples of our stuff for Arabia. After all the grief Dad's given him, he was happy to see he could do business with us after all. And besides, as long as we don't touch down on English soil, we haven't broken the law, right?"

"He even threw in an Arabian lamp for us to experiement with," Fred added.

"They _tried_ to get me to let them shrink me into it," complained Ginny.

"You could have been the Ginny in the magic lamp!" George insisted. "So anyway, like I was saying, that's how we got the magic carpet. Smashing, eh?"

"Wow. That's… that's cool." Harry grinned. Just like Fred and George to pull off something like that. "But what I meant was, how did you know where Azkaban was?"

"Piece of cake," George replied. "Sent Hedwig with a letter to Harry Potter. Guess they didn't bother to make it unplottable. Just followed her right on in, and then caught up with her, took her over to help us, there you were." He held up a parchment envelope with Harry's name on it.

"Wow. That's… that's all I can say. I can't believe that… that you'd actually do this for me."

"Harry," replied Neville, looking a bit hurt. "Ron and Hermione aren't your _only_ friends."

Harry felt wounded. Of course Neville was right. Harry had spent so much of his free time with Ron and Hermione that he tended to forget that other people cared about him too. Especially Neville. Harry had only found out at the end of last year that Neville's parents were in the insanity ward of St. Mungo's after having been tortured by Death Eaters, and felt awful that he hadn't gotten to know Neville enough to even find out about his family. He was sure he didn't want to make that mistake again.

"What's that?" interrupted Fred, pointing at something in the distance. Something appeared to be flying toward them. It seemed to be some sort of large flying creature. Too small for a dragon, definitely. A winged horse, perhaps? Or was it a Hippogriff?

It was a Hippogriff.

_It was a black dog riding on a Hippogriff._

"Sirius!" called Harry, standing up and waving his arms. The others were looking up at him, a bit shocked. "Trust me," he explained, "he really is innocent. Even Dumbledore believes it."

As Buckbeak the hippogriff flew up alongside the flying carpet, the black dog transformed into Sirius Black, Harry's godfather. "Sirius!" shouted Harry happily. It was the first time he had seen his godfather in several weeks.

"Sorry, no time to chat. Wish I could," he added with a regretful look at Harry. He drew out a small wooden box from his robes and handed it across the gap to Harry on the flying carpet. It had a bronze key in it.

"The key is a Portkey," Sirius explained in a gruff voice. "It will take you to the Burrow. You will be safe there. You are not safe here. Death Eaters are coming. Everyone join hands, and make sure somebody's holding Crookshanks and the owls. Harry, take the key when everyone's ready. It's the only way."

The others looked at Harry, who nodded at them, assuring them that, yes, this would be safe, they could trust Sirius. "Ready?" he asked them all. "One… two… _three."_

And on _three,_Harry took the bronze key, and the all-too-familiar jerk behind his navel brought him through swirling winds and colors into the front yard of the Weasley family home, the Burrow.

"Harry!"

Arthur and Molly Weasley were running out from the front door. Arthur threw his arm around Harry's shoulders in welcome, before his wife caught up and seized Harry into a motherly embrace lasting several seconds. Arthur meanwhile was hugging Ginny, Fred, and George in turn. And standing in the background, looking on with a knowing smile, was Albus Dumbledore.

"Come inside, Harry. You poor thing, you look like you're starving, come inside, you must eat, dinner's almost ready," rattled Molly so fast Harry could barely make out the words.

But as Harry and his friends followed Mr. and Mrs. Weasley inside for dinner, he saw a soft couch in their living room. And all of a sudden, the whole exhaustion of everything that had happen broke upon him, and he collapsed on it, fast asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Darkness. A firm yet soft surface beneath him. Where was he? Something didn't feel right. It was too soft. The air seemed somehow empty. It was nice, though. Peaceful. Something seemed strange about how peaceful it was.

Then a flood of memories came rushing back to him. He wasn't in Azkaban anymore- Ginny had rescued him- Ginny and Fred and George and Neville and all the others- and they had come back to the Burrow with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and- where _was_he, anyway?

Harry sat up in bed- for, as he now realized, he was in a bed- and tried to piece together his memory of what had happened. He had come to the Burrow… Mrs. Weasley had hugged him… Mr. Weasley and Dumbledore were there too… he had come inside… he remembered seeing a soft couch in their living room… and then what? He couldn't remember. Had he fallen asleep on the couch? He supposed he must have. He felt the bed beneath him again. It was a bed, all right. Somebody must have carried him there. He listened for a moment. He couldn't hear anyone breathing, so he was apparently alone in the room. Was this Ron's room? He couldn't tell.

Instinctively he reached for his wand, to light it and see where he was. But the wand was not in his pocket. Of course. They had taken it away when they took him to Azkaban. He shifted over to the edge of the bed, feeling helpless. And weak. Very weak.

Suddenly he felt like he wanted something. Somehow he wanted food, but didn't feel hungry. He wanted a glass of water, but didn't feel thirsty. And, more than anything else, he wanted to talk to somebody. He wanted to talk about what was going on, to tell somebody what it was like in Azkaban, to find out from somebody what was going to happen.

And so he got up to walk downstairs.

But actually walking downstairs turned out to be a bit of an adventure. For one thing, he really was feeling quite weak; and for another, he had not the faintest idea how to turn on the lights. Blindly he groped his way to the door. He had to feel along the walls for a while until he found it. Slowly his eyes were becoming acclimated to the darkness; it was a cloudy night with no light of moon or stars to help him, but the dim glows of Muggle cities on the horizon were providing enough illumination that, by the time he reached the door, he could at least see a faint and blurry outline of it.

Unfortunately, once outside the door (which creaked a bit as he opened it), he found that even to his darkness-acclimated eyes the light was insufficient to show him where the stairs were. He turned to his right, and stumbled. Oops- apparently the stairs were going up that way. He reversed field, putting out his arm to try to find the opposite wall. There was a handrail- good. That would help. Slowly and with great caution he worked his way down the stairs, stumbling once about two flights down when he didn't realize he was at the landing and his foot met floor faster than he expected it to. After three more flights, he found that the floor had leveled off and was starting to slope up. Ah- he knew where he was now. He was in the passageway that led to the Weasleys' kitchen from the bedroom wing of their house. He had walked through this passage many times before. It was a comforting feeling.

Then he found himself coming out into an open place. Yes, this was about right- this was where the kitchen ought to be. He groped around. He had reached his goal, but, not having been to the Burrow for almost a year, he seemed unable to remember where there ought to be a chair, or a table, or a glass of water, or- or, most importantly, a way to turn on the lights. For at least a minute he stood there stupidly.

Then he heard a noise from somewhere upstairs. He turned around. A series of creaking footsteps- someone was coming! The person seemed to have reached the bottom of the stairs- they were coming through the passageway- they reached the kitchen- and a soft female voice said, "Is that you, Harry?" The voice really sounded warm and pleasant. Then- brilliant, dazzling light. The row of candles encircling the Weasleys' kitchen had magically illuminated. Harry blinked repeatedly, trying to adjust to the light. He looked up and saw a reddish blur. Only then did he realize he didn't know where his glasses were. Suddenly he realized to whom the voice belonged. _Wait a minute,_he thought, _that's just-_

"Hello, Ginny," he replied.

"Hi, Harry," she whispered in reply, her hand still on what would have been a normal Muggle light switch except for the fact that when Mr. Weasley installed it he hadn't realized that Muggle light switches usually went up for "on" and down for "off." Harry, still blinking, tried to make his eyes focus, but they just wouldn't do it. He needed his glasses.

"Did you need anything? Something to eat, or drink, or… anything? Mum was so worried about you yesterday."

"Yes… no… yeah, well… I dunno, I guess." Harry felt stupid. He wasn't sure what he had really come downstairs for, now that he thought about it. "What time is it?"

"It's a little after three- can't you see Dad's new clock? Oh! Of course… your glasses! Where are your glasses, Harry?"

"I dunno." He was really feeling quite stupid. He had no idea where his glasses were, or his wand, or… anything. It was a very helpless feeling.

"Hold on then, I'll get them for you." Ginny rushed upstairs to what Harry supposed must have been Ron's room. He looked around, feeling a bit wobbly on his feet, and found a chair to sink into. Ginny came back a minute later with Harry's glasses.

"Thanks," said Harry as the world came back into focus. "By the way… you don't happen to know what happened to my wand, d'you?"

"Oh, Harry," Ginny replied mournfully, "I'm sorry… they broke it when they sent you to Azkaban. _Mr. Malfoy_ made sure of that. Ron's told me about your wand and You-Know-Who's. So I'm sure You-Know- I mean, _Voldemort"_(she shivered, but only slightly this time) "was happy with him." She reached into the pocket of her dressing gown and handed Harry two pieces of holly, about five and one-half inches each. Harry could see that the precious phoenix feather inside was also broken. "Dad managed to get a hold of them at the Ministry last week," Ginny explained.

There was a moment's silence.

"Do you want something to eat, Harry? Or to drink? You must be starving."

"Er… well… I mean, I feel weak and all, but… but not really hungry or thirsty. I'm not sure I could eat anything if I tried."

"_Harry_, you have to try. We can't let you starve. Mum left lots of food in the icebox. Some chicken, maybe? Or bacon and eggs? I know how to cook those. Or just a sandwich?"

He shrugged. "Er… maybe just a glass of water. Think that's about all I can manage."

"Harry, if all you can do is drink something, at least make it something with some nourishment to it. We have lots of pumpkin juice, that's nourishing."

"At least give me a bit of water first. I'm not sure if my stomach can handle anything more."

"All right, then." Ginny poured Harry a small amount of water from a jug. At first he tried to gulp it down like a starving man, but even though it was only a few ounces he found himself slowing down before he finished it. He was gasping for breath, exhausted, by the time he put the glass down. Ginny laughed sympathetically and poured him some pumpkin juice.

Harry looked at the juice in his glass and felt as overstuffed as he usually did after the Welcoming Feast at Hogwarts. "Ginny, I'm sorry- I don't think- I couldn't-"

She laughed again. "That's okay," she reassured him. "Just a little sip every few minutes. You'll get through it."

There was another silence. It felt more awkward this time, like there ought to have been something for them to talk about but neither of them could think of what it was. Finally Ginny broke the silence.

"So, Harry… did you eat anything at _all_ in Azkaban? You looked a starving wreck when I found you there. Still do, really."

"I dunno…." He didn't want to remember Azkaban, didn't even want to think about it. "Some bread… and water. But it was… it was like… I didn't _want_to eat anything."

"What was it like there?" she asked with what looked like an almost morbid curiosity, and then added, "…if you don't mind my asking, that is."

"Well…." He thought for a moment. "No, I don't mind you asking. That's… that's quite all right. It was like… well, you know what it's like when a Dementor comes around?"

Ginny nodded, looking properly horrified.

"Imagine hundreds of Dementors swarming around, day and night. That makes it enough of a prison right there, I guess. It was like… it was… all I could remember was the worst things that ever happened. Especially Voldemort killing my mum. And my dad. And the thing with Cedric. And- well, lots of other things." He thought a moment. It seemed like a fair question to ask. "Ginny… what d'you hear when the Dementors come around?"

Ginny looked embarrassed, but steeled herself to answer the question. "Well, you remember that time on the train?" Harry nodded. He could never forget it. It was the first time he had ever encountered a Dementor. "That time I heard… I heard Tom- Riddle, that is- laughing at me as he came out of the diary. But when we came to get you in Azkaban… well… I'm sorry, Harry, but… well I heard a bit of Riddle that time too, but mostly… well…." She paused to take a breath, and looked away from Harry. Then the words came out in a rush: "I heard Mr. Malfoy reading your letter."

Harry thought for a moment. The realization set in on him. Hearing what he had written to Sirius had been the worst moment in Ginny's life, worse than nearly dying in the Chamber of Secrets. "Ginny- I'm sorry- I don't know- I didn't mean-"

"I know you didn't mean it that way," Ginny explained patiently, "but… ohh, it was awful. Don't worry, I'm not upset anymore, even though I was. I'm over it now. I know, you've never had anybody to talk to about these things, and all that, but… just so you know…."

"Yeah," Harry nodded, "I know. That was… well, it was actually one of the things I heard a lot of in Azkaban. Lucius Malfoy reading the letter, I mean. That is, it was like I knew you and everybody were getting hurt, and it was all because of how stupid I'd been, and I couldn't do anything to stop it."

"Yeah. Well." Ginny paused for a moment. "I guess it worked, though."

"How d'you mean?" asked Harry, curiously.

"Well, it's like, if you wanted to get rid of that stupid little-girl crush I had on you… I guess maybe that was the only way. It's like, once I got over it, it was like…" (she looked at the floor) "it was like I could never feel that way about you again. I mean, I still think you're a nice person and all, but- y'know- not like _that_anymore- you understand?"  
Harry nodded. "Yeah… I think so."

"And so," Ginny continued, "well, I guess… thanks."

_Thanks for what?_Harry wondered. Then he realized: _Thanks for getting rid of her crush on me. Just like Cedric dying got rid of my crush on Cho._He supposed it had to feel like at least as much of a relief to her as losing the crush on Cho had been for him, maybe more so. And it would be a bit of a relief for him, too, not to have Ginny acting silly around him like that, but… well… somehow, in a bit of a stupid way, he felt like he was going to miss it. Quickly he dismissed the thought from his mind.

There was an awkward silence. Ginny was still taking care not to meet Harry's eyes.

Harry took a small sip of pumpkin juice. He looked at Ginny. She looked uncomfortable. He felt the same way. Neither of them knew what to say.

And then- blessed relief- there came the distant sound of a bedroom door creaking, and footsteps coming downstairs and into the passageway. Harry and Ginny both turned and looked toward the kitchen door to see who was coming.

It was Mrs. Weasley.

"Harry! You're awake, dear!" she exclaimed, though softly, so as not to wake the rest of the house. She appeared to be restraining herself from embarrassing Harry by hugging him again. "Did you just wake up? You must have slept more than once 'round the clock, it was only noon when you got here yesterday. Have you had anything to eat?"

"Ginny got me some water and some pumpkin juice. I'm… I'm not sure I can manage more than that."

"Yes, dear, but please keep eating as much as you can. You need your strength back. Oh, Harry, you must have had such a terrible time of it in Azkaban!"

"Yeah… yeah… I don't…. Yeah, it was awful. But, Mrs. Weasley…."

"Yes, dear?"

"What's been going on while I was in… while I was in there? I mean… what's been happening in… in the world?"

"Oh, Harry, don't worry so much about that. The main thing you need to know is that you're safe here. Dumbledore's just finished making the house unplottable."

"_Unplottable?"_Harry had seen the term used before, but had never really had anyone explain what it meant. It was the sort of thing Hermione would know. "What's that mean?"

"It means that the only way you can get in or out of here is by Portkey. Think of it like a magical bubble separating us from the outside world. Not only can it not be seen from overhead or show up on a photo from the air- that's why they call it unplottable, it can't go onto maps by the usual ways- but if somebody tries to walk into here, he'll suddenly find himself on the other side. And if somebody tries to Apparate here, he'll just automatically Apparate onto the other side. The only way in or out is by Portkey, and the only way you can make a Portkey is by being here. The Burrow is now one of the safest places in the wizarding world."

Harry sucked his breath in. So this also was part of Dumbledore's plan for keeping him safe. "Mrs. Weasley?" Harry asked. "Did Dumbledore- did he do this just to keep _me_ safe?" He was feeling weak again. He took another sip of the pumpkin juice. It made him feel slightly better.

Mrs. Weasley and Ginny both laughed. "No, Harry," said Mrs. Weasley with a smile. "That was part of it, of course. But we're also going to become the headquarters for the Resistance in England."

"The Resistance?!"

"Dumbledore's had to make a break with the Ministry, Harry. He had to, you know, with Lucius Malfoy playing Fudge like a puppet on a string. Arthur's handing in his resignation from the Ministry tonight. If it were light outside you'd see a whole bunch of tents set up in the yard. All of Dumbledore's most trusted people are staying here. Arthur's been contacting everyone at the Ministry he thought we could trust, and most of the time he guessed right, but a couple of people went straight to Malfoy with stories about what Arthur was doing. So we're setting up a new Ministry. We expect we'll have about thirty people living on the grounds here."

Mrs. Weasley sounded a little bit frightened by the magnitude of what was going on, but more than that she seemed thrilled by the role she and her family were playing in the events of the time. And besides, Harry figured, cooking for thirty people every day had to be like heaven on earth for Mrs. Weasley. Harry grinned as he downed the rest of his pumpkin juice.

There was another set of creaking footsteps in the passageway. "Excellent, are we carrying on?" said Fred, as he and George made their appearance in the kitchen.

"So," said George with a typical sly grin, "the Azkaban escapee has decided to wake up and grace the world with his presence."

"So how's life in the free world?" added Fred.

"You can't really… not unless you've… well, I guess the only way I can explain it is, imagine having a hundred Dementors surrounding you morning, noon, and night. Then they disappear. It's like… it's kind of like breathing fresh air for the first time in my life."

"Or like your whole body's been filled with poison and all of a sudden it gets drained out?" Everybody looked at Ginny as she said this.

"Well… well, yeah," Harry replied. "How did you know?"

"That was what it was like in the Chamber of Secrets," said Ginny, a bit awkwardly. "Only that was a more slow and gradual thing, like Riddle had been poisoning me more and more all year, and all of a sudden you- all of a sudden the diary was destroyed, and Riddle disappeared, and I was- I was myself again."

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Kind of like that."

There was another slightly awkward silence. Molly got up to get some bread. Ginny followed her. Harry looked at Fred and George.

"So," he commented, "your mum was telling me about the Resistance."

"Yeah," replied Fred with uncharacteristic seriousness. "The Ministry's finally gone too far. Your trial was basically what split all of wizarding England right down the middle. From what Dad says, it sounds like maybe a third of them are on our side. Not what we hoped for, but we'll give them a good hard fight before it's over. That's all we can do, right?"

"And on the bright side," George added, "Mum and Dad are letting us start the Wheezes. Seems they and Dumbledore think it'll be useful for the Resistance."

Mrs. Weasley turned and was about to say something, but decided against it. Instead she simply pointed her wand at a piece of bread, saying, "_Tostaro,"_and handed it to Ginny for buttering.

"It sort of has been useful already. For me, at least," Harry pointed out.

"Least we could do," replied Fred with a wink. George checked over his shoulder to make sure his mother hadn't grasped the full implications of that statement. But Mrs. Weasley was picking up the jug of pumpkin juice to refill Harry's class, while Ginny handed Harry a slice of buttered toast and re-seated herself at the kitchen table. Harry held the toast in his hands. It felt heavy, so heavy. But he knew he needed it. And the butter made it look nice and soft and warm- yes, he felt he could eat some of it after all. He took a small bite, and washed it down with a swallow of pumpkin juice. Outside the window, Harry could see the dim glow of sunrise on the horizon. Apparently the sky was clearing. It was now getting close to four-thirty in the morning, according to Fred's watch (which Harry was reading upside-down).

Suddenly there was another noise from outside. The door opened. From his chair at the kitchen table, Harry could see Mr. Weasley coming home. He was followed by Professor Dumbledore, with Fawkes flying in over his shoulder. And Dumbledore was followed by Ron and Hermione.

And Ron and Hermione were _holding hands._

Harry felt his mouth drop open at the sight that was proceeding through the Weasleys' front door. Casting his eyes around at the rest of the group, he saw that Ginny's mouth had dropped open too. Fred and George looked mischievous even by their own standards, no doubt perceiving an opportunity for a great deal of fun. _Oh, well, at least they'll be laying off of Ginny for a while._Mrs. Weasley, on the other hand, looked stunned but very pleased.

Ron and Hermione looked at each other, realizing the group's reaction to their unusual form of proximity to one another. Some unspoken communication that Harry didn't understand appeared to pass between them, and they dropped hands. They both looked slightly embarrassed, but very happy- Hermione in particular looked happier than Harry had ever seen her before.

Professor Dumbledore cast a brief smile at Ron and Hermione before addressing the group. "Please be seated, everyone," he instructed. "We have many things to discuss." Harry finished the rest of his toast while everyone else was finding chairs. Ginny buttered another slice and handed it to him. Meanwhile, Harry looked up nervously and Ron and Hermione. He wasn't sure what to say to them, or what they would want to say to him.

When everyone had gotten settled, with Ron and Hermione both getting hugs from Mrs. Weasley and Ginny, Dumbledore began to speak. "First of all, I would like to thank you, Harry."

Harry felt confused. _What for?_he wondered. Apparently Dumbledore must have read his face correctly, because he continued. "What I am thanking you for, Harry," he explained, "is your defense at the trial, in which you stood up to Mr. Malfoy and told everyone the truth about him. Because of your courageous stand, seven of the twelve Hogwarts governors have rejected Minister Fudge's order that they fire me, and have authorized me to make Hogwarts a safe haven for the Resistance."

"You are no doubt wondering what the Resistance is," he continued. "The Resistance is the collective name for those witches and wizards who have chosen- some openly and some in secret- to take their stand against Lord Voldemort, and against the Ministry of Magic insofar as the Ministry remains under the control of Voldemort's supporters. But perhaps you've heard of this already?"

Harry looked at Mrs. Weasley, who nodded at Dumbledore. "Yes, Professor, I told him a little bit about it."

"Excellent," said Dumbledore. "And therefore I would like to ask everyone present: Are you prepared to stand against Lord Voldemort?"

Harry, Ginny, Fred, George, Ron, and Hermione all nodded their agreement. "Whatever it takes," said Fred.

"Very well, then," the Headmaster continued. "Your tasks for the remainder of the summer will be relatively minimal. But you must be ready to take whatever action may be necessary, at a moment's notice, should the need exist. In the meantime, however, Misters Fred and George Weasley, I would like for the two of you simply to continue what you would have been doing anyway."

Fred and George looked puzzled. "You mean…" Fred began, and George finished, "the joke shop?"

"Indeed. If we defeat Lord Voldemort but lose our ability to enjoy life in the process, then it might be said that Voldemort has triumphed after all- by making us like himself."

Silence reigned while Dumbledore's words sank in. Harry agreed with Dumbledore, of course- when he had given the twins the money to start the joke shop, he had told them, "We could all do with a few laughs. I've got a feeling we're going to need them more than usual before long"- but he had never thought of it in quite those terms. But Dumbledore was right, he had to be.

"Mr. Potter," Dumbledore continued, "You are not to leave the Burrow until school starts in September. The purchasing of your school supplies will be taken care of. You must understand that Lord Voldemort still desires your destruction. Therefore, your summer will be best spent by an intensive practicing of your Defense Against the Dark Arts skills. I believe Miss Granger and Mr. Ronald Weasley have assisted you with this sort of practice before?"

"Yes," replied Harry, remembering the time spent with Ron and Hermione practicing for the third task that spring. It seemed a distant memory.

"And Miss Weasley and Mr. Longbottom, when he joins us, will also be helping you with your practicing. Those of you helping Harry practice his skills are also to be practicing similarly yourselves. Is that understood?"

Ron, Hermione, and Ginny nodded.

"But, Professor," Harry asked, "how can I practice spells or… or anything? My wand…." He held out its broken pieces.

"That," replied the Headmaster, "can be remedied, I believe, with help from one of our friends." Even as he spoke, Fawkes fluttered onto Harry's knee. He craned his neck around, plucked a feather with his beak, and presented it to Harry, laying it on top of the broken pieces containing one of his own feathers.

"You see, Harry?" added Dumbledore. "As long as Fawkes exists, you will always have a wand to match Voldemort's. Mr. Ollivander has cast in his lot with us, and I will be seeing him this afternoon… if I may?" He held out his hand, and Harry entrusted him with Fawkes' feather.

"And concerning your Defense practices, I believe there is also someone else who will be assisting you from time to time, whom I expect to be joining- ah, here he is now."

The door opened, and a familiar figure walked in. "Professor Lupin!" shouted Harry as he got up to greet his third-year Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. "And Sirius!" he added with even more excitement as his godfather followed. Lupin shook his hand warmly, followed by an embrace from Sirius. Outside the door Harry could see several tents set up. It was getting quite light outside now. In the yard a rooster crowed.

"Please be seated, please be seated," said Dumbledore with a smile, not seeming to wish to lose his train of thought. Harry sat back down, swallowing the last bit of his second piece of toast as Mrs. Weasley got up to cook a poached egg for him.

"Remus and Sirius will be staying here this summer," Dumbledore explained. "One or both of them will often be sent away on special assignments, of course," he added, "but Remus will be here often enough to serve as your primary instructor in Defense Against the Dark Arts. And I daresay you've been wanting to spend some time with Sirius here as well?"

Harry grinned sheepishly, looking down at the table. Through his peripheral vision, he could tell that Ginny was looking away. He could sort of sense that Ron and Hermione were acting a bit nervous too.

"I understand, of course," continued Dumbledore, "that certain persons present may have felt a bit- _hurt_- by certain things that were written some time ago?"

Ginny nodded, a bit glumly. Ron and Hermione also nodded with sheepish smiles, although they somehow seemed… well, they seemed _happy_about something.

"And has everything been apologized for and forgiven?"

Ginny and Harry both nodded firmly. Harry looked up a bit nervously at Ron and Hermione, but they were both smiling and nodding at Dumbledore. Harry wondered what that meant.

"We must remember that it is _imperative_ that we who know the truth and are standing together against Voldemort, also stand together in the sense that we not hold past grudges against each other." Dumbledore's eyes flashed briefly in Sirius' direction, and Harry remembered the time at the end of the previous school year when the Headmaster had induced Sirius and his old rival Professor Snape to shake hands with each other, probably for the first time in their lives.

The door opened again, and Neville Longbottom and his grandmother entered. Harry wondered if there was _ever_ a time when Neville's Gran wasn't wearing that horrible hat with the moldy stuffed vulture on top.

"Welcome, welcome," said Dumbledore. "Please be seated." Mrs. Weasley served Harry his poached egg, motioning for him to eat it. Harry didn't know how much more he'd be able to eat, but was starting to feel stronger, and thought he might be able to manage the egg. He started in on it. Outside, the sun had now risen above the horizon, and from the noises Harry could hear, it sounded like the birds in the trees, the chickens in the yard, and the gnomes in the garden had all risen to face the day.

"As I was saying," Dumbledore continued, "mutual trust is essential among us who seek to stand together against Voldemort. And I wish to emphasize also that the forgiveness of past offenses is critical. Otherwise we become no different from Lord Voldemort, who repeatedly reminds his followers, 'I do not forgive. I do not forget.' Even those who may have- _testified_against us recently- even they, if they return to us, must be forgiven."

"Percy, that git," mumbled Fred almost inaudibly.

"_No,_Mr. Weasley," insisted Dumbledore. "I repeat once again, even your brother must be forgiven if he returns to us. And we must maintain the hope that he _will_return. Is that understood?"

Fred looked a bit intimidated, but nodded. "Sorry, Headmaster. Yes. I understand. It's just… it's just hard."

Dumbledore smiled encouragingly. "Yes. I have experienced that feeling also. But we must not give in to that feeling. Even some of my closest friends disagree with me on this point, feeling that forgiveness undermines our sense of 'constant vigilance'. But I remain absolutely convinced of the importance of what I have told you."

As if on cue, the door opened yet again, and Mad-Eye Moody entered, followed by Mundungus Fletcher and the woman Harry had seen sitting next to Dumbledore during the trial. He wondered yet again where I had seen her before.

Dumbledore smiled and welcomed them. "I believe you are all acquainted with Alastor Moody," he commented with a hint of a wry grin, which Harry suspected to be due to the fact that Moody himself had not actually taught their classes at all last year. "I would also like you to meet Mundungus Fletcher and Arabella Figg."

"Mrs. Figg!" exclaimed Harry, recognizing her as the woman who had been a neighbor of the Dursleys on Privet Drive and had occasionally watched over him when the Dursleys were traveling.

"It's nice to see you, Harry," replied Mrs. Figg. "You're looking _so_ grown up now." Harry's mind was bursting with questions. _Why hadn't Mrs. Figg told him what he was?_But he didn't get a chance to ask them as Dumbledore continued his explanation.

"They, along with Arthur and Molly Weasley, Remus Lupin, and Sirius Black, are the surviving members of the Order of the Phoenix, my group of advisors from the previous war against Voldemort. Since Voldemort's return last month, I have re-convened the order. Voldemort calls his followers Death Eaters, as it is their goal to overcome death. But we take as our symbol the Phoenix, as we seek only to transcend death by living on through our loved ones who survive us, as our deceased colleagues Lily and James Potter live on through you, Harry."

Harry sat in his chair, stunned. His brain felt overloaded, not to mention tired. He didn't know what to say.

"I was telling these young people," Dumbledore explained to Moody, Fletcher, and Mrs. Figg, "about the importance I place on forgivness and the giving of second chances." Moody made a slightly louder-than-usual breathing noise but otherwise said nothing.

Ron spoke up next. "Professor Dumbledore," he began hesitatingly. "I was wondering about something. Percy… how could he… how could he do that? I mean, he's a Gryffindor, isn't he? How could the Sorting Hat put him in Gryffindor, if he was going to do something like that?"

"Are you under the impression," Dumbledore shot back, "that only Slytherins make foolish choices in life? That only Slytherins become hungry for power? That no Gryffindors have ever made that mistake?"

The whole table was silent. Harry had always just sort of assumed that only Slytherins were evil, ever since Hagrid had told him about the four Houses of Hogwarts before his first year. Apparently his friends had felt the same way.

"Bartimeus Crouch was a Gryffindor," Dumbledore told the group. "He was Head Boy during my first year as head of Gryffindor House. He was a great wizard in his time. But he became power-hungry, and made some very foolish choices. He died two months ago, suffering the results of his own choices. Yet he died bravely, fighting to counteract the results of his mistakes, and for that I honor him."

The silence continued. Apparently none of them- with the possible exception of Hermione- had realized what Mr. Crouch might have meant to Dumbledore.

"His son, Bartimeus Junior, was a Ravenclaw. He also was Head Boy at Hogwarts. And he became perhaps the Dark Lord's most faithful servant, and was responsible for the events that took place during the Third Task last year, resulting in the return of Lord Voldemort to his body. Young Barty Crouch received the Dementor's Kiss shortly thereafter, and remained unrepentant to the last.

"Cornelius Fudge was a Hufflepuff. And although he sincerely does not believe himself to be serving the Lord Voldemort, I believe you are all aware of how his foolish choices have been used to serve the Dark Lord's ends.

"And Peter Pettigrew, also known as Wormtail, was also a Gryffindor. It was he who betrayed the Potters and framed Sirius for the crime. It was he who murdered Cedric Diggory on Lord Voldemort's orders. It was he who cut Harry's arm and used his blood to resurrect his master."

Harry noticed Fred and George exchanging curious glances. Suddenly he remembered something. "Fred and George," he said with a nod toward Lupin and Sirius, "I'd like you to meet Mr. Moony and Mr. Padfoot."

Fred and George's eyes popped wide open. Then they got out of their chairs and bowed down on the floor before Sirius and Lupin, saying, "We are your servants, your humble servants. Teach us your secrets of magical mischief." Ron grinned at Harry, while most of the others (except Hermione) looked puzzled.

"By the way," Fred asked them, "who was Prongs?"

Sirius and Lupin looked at Harry. He swallowed. "Prongs was my father," he said somberly. Fred and George's eyes opened even wider, this time staring at Harry with pity and horror.

"Entertaining as this discussion no doubt is," Dumbledore interrupted, "we have one more order of business to discuss, as soon as our missing member arrives- but here he is now."

The door opened one more time, and there entered almost the last person Harry would have expected to see. Professor Snape.

"Have you the potion, Severus?" asked Dumbledore.

"I have it," Snape replied, producing a vial from his pocket.

"Due to the special need to protect you, Harry," Dumbledore explained, "Professor Snape has been kind enough to produce a potion to enable you to protect yourself with the Fidelius Charm. Even though you are to be staying here at the Burrow, Harry, we believe that the more layers of protection you have, the safer you will be. Otherwise, we would be guilty of the same sort of overconfidence as the Ministry, which inadvertently allowed your friends to- _retrieve_you yesterday. Constant vigilance- isn't that right, Alastor?" Dumbledore looked at Moody, whose face split into a frightening grin as he grunted his agreement.

"What you must do, Harry, is to keep your mind fixed with full confidence in me as your Secret Keeper, to pronounce the word 'Fidelius' as I speak it, and to swallow the potion in your goblet even as I swallow that in mine. Is that understood?"

"Yes," Harry agreed. Snape was pouring the potion into two goblets, after which he handed one to Harry and one to Dumbledore.

"Are you ready, Harry?"

The thought burst unbidden into Harry's mind once again: _But how do I know Snape hasn't sabotaged the potion?_ He forced himself to dismiss the idea:_Dumbledore trusts Snape and I trust Dumbledore. That's good enough for now._ He nodded to Dumbledore that he was ready.

"Fidelius," they both said and downed their potions.

There was a moment's silence. Then everybody in the room clapped (except for Professor Snape, who kept his face impassive). Snape was looking at Harry, as if expecting him to say something.

"Er…" stammered Harry. "Thank you, Professor."

Snape made no change of facial expression. For a moment Harry thought Snape was going to say something nasty. Then he nodded ever so briefly to Harry, and his face returned to its former aspect.

Harry noticed that Snape's left arm was twitching. "Headmaster," said Snape, "I must leave."

"Very well, Severus. You must do what you must do. And I thank you. You will find a Portkey outside the door. It will only operate in one direction."

Snape turned and left.

"And now," said Dumbledore to the assembled group, "I believe we all ought to get properly dressed and washed up for breakfast. Do we have a scheduled mealtime, Molly?" he asked.

"In about an hour, I think," replied Mrs. Weasley.

"Very well, then," said Dumbledore. "I shall see you all at seven o'clock. You are dismissed."

Everyone got up and began to mill around the room. Sirius came over to Harry. "We can talk after breakfast," he said. "I think Ron has a few things he needs to talk with you about first. You can go with him to his room. I'll see you in an hour."

Harry felt a twinge of regret that he wasn't going to get to talk with Sirius just yet, but then turned eagerly to Ron, who was standing behind him with an expectant expression, as if wanting to talk about something. They turned and walked through the passageway and the five flights of stairs to Ron's room. Upon entering, they sat down and grinned nervously at each other.

Then Harry had an idea.

"Ron," he asked, "could I haff a vord?"

Ron looked puzzled.

"I vant to know," continued Harry in his best imitation of a Bulgarian accent, "vot there is betveen you and Hermy-own-ninny."


	8. Chapter 8

"Wh- _what?!"_ stammered Ron. Harry kept a straight face for as long as he could, while several confused expressions crossed Ron's face in rapid succession. Finally Harry broke into a grin, and Ron relaxed and laughed nervously.

"So, Weasley… congratulations. You finally figured it out."

"Yeah. Er, thanks. Er… hey, what was _that_ supposed to mean?"

Now it was Harry's turn to freeze up. For all he knew, Ron might still be mad about what Harry had written in the letter to Sirius. It was time for some backpedaling.

"Er… Ron, I'm sorry… What I said… I didn't mean…."

"Forget it."

Another awkward silence followed. Neither of them seemed to know what to say.

"So, tell me," Harry finally ventured, "how _did_this happen? Between you and Hermione, I mean?"

"Well…." Ron's freckles were blending into the background of his reddening face. "Well, you see, when they put us in detention, it was, like, solitary confinement. So there was a lot of time to think. And so I got to thinking."  
"Thinking?"

"Yeah… mainly about…." Ron looked away. "About what you said in that letter. And I realized… er, well… you were right."

Harry didn't dare say anything.

"And so, I guess… well… thanks, Harry. I owe you one."

Harry grinned, but still didn't say anything.

"So it was like, for the whole fifteen days- well, I started by being mad at you, of course, and then I was mad at Malfoy's dad, and really at pretty much everybody. But eventually what I kept thinking about was Hermione, all the rows we've had and everything- and all of a sudden I realized, I actually like her. As… you know, as a girl." He paused, his ears slightly pink. "Fancy that. Never thought it would come to this. I guess I figured… well, I don't know what I figured. I guess I didn't realize what it was going to be like. But it was awful. 'Cause it was like, I'd suddenly figured out that I liked her, and after the Yule Ball and Fleur and everything, if I suddenly changed my mind and decided I liked her, I wasn't sure if she was ever going to talk to me again."

Ron took a breath. His voice was a bit higher and more nervous than usual. Harry felt weird. Ron had been his best friend for four years, but they had never really had a conversation like this before.

"And then, when Dad and Dumbledore came in the middle of the night to let us out- I guess they decided to come as soon as our fifteen days were up- well, when I saw Hermione, it was like I really wanted to see her, but I was scared to see her too. And her face… well, she looked awful, like she'd been crying the whole fifteen days. It was worse than third year, when she was doing that mad thing with the Time-Turner. And then she looked away from me, like I was… well, I don't know. And it hit me, kind of like, 'Ron Weasley, you git, it's because of you being so stupid that her face looks like that.' I felt like I was… worse than Malfoy, really.

"And then Dumbledore sent Dad off to meet Mr. and Mrs. Granger, and then a minute later went to join him and left Fawkes with us. I'm not sure if he actually went all the way to the lobby, maybe he just wanted to get us to talk to each other. Bet he did, knowing Dumbledore. And so there I was, standing like a fool, wondering what to say. But finally I decided it was better to say something instead of nothing."

Ron took another deep breath.

"So I said, 'Hermione, I'm sorry about… about everything, you know… and if it's too late, that's okay, but what I've realized is… I… I really like you, and…', and I didn't get a chance to finish, because she comes rushing at me. For a moment I should she was going to haul off on me like she did to Malfoy that one time."

"But instead she hugged you, like that other time in third year?" Harry interrupted.

"Yeah." Ron was really blushing now. "Yeah. Only this time… well, it was scary this time too, but it was… well, it was different, and kind of better, since this time I knew what it was really about, and, well…." Ron trailed off. "I've got a girlfriend. Hermione's my girlfriend, Harry. Can you believe it?"

Ron looked embarrassed but very pleased. Harry nodded, sharing his friend's enjoyment of the moment. "Yeah. I've kind of seen this coming, you know."

"Guess I was the only one that didn't. Oh, well. I can't believe… I can't believe she actually still likes me, after… after everything."

There was another awkward silence. Harry wondered what to say next. A sly smile crossed his face.

"So… have you kissed her yet?"  
"Well, that's the other thing. After Dad and Dumbledore came back with the Grangers, Dumbledore was getting the Portkey ready, and Hermione went to talk with her mum and dad for a few minutes. Now, you see, we were still holding hands when they all showed up. After she'd stopped hugging me, I guess I looked kind of stupid, and said, 'Er, what am I supposed to do now?,' and she gets all imperious and says, 'Well, Ronald Weasley, you could start by offering to hold my hand.' And it was a few seconds after that that they all walked in on us."

"So then, Dad gets to talk to me, and he says, 'Well, Ron, it looks like you and Hermione are getting along pretty well.' And of course I didn't know what to say, and then he says, 'In that case, you should know that your mother and I think Hermione is an outstanding young witch, and that we'd love to have her as a daughter-in-law someday.'"

Harry's eyes popped open. He had known since the Yule Ball that Ron and Hermione fancied each other, but to think about them _that_way- well, it was just too weird. "But you're just kids," he pointed out.

"Yeah, that's what I said," Ron replied. "And then Dad says, 'Three more years and you won't be.' "

More stunned silence. Harry didn't know what to say. Fortunately, Ron continued. "Blew _me_ out of the water," he added with a touch of the good old Ron sarcasm. It was a relief to hear that from Ron again, even if only a little bit of it.

"Harry, I'm scared," said Ron, and the sarcasm was gone again. "I mean, on one hand it's scary to think about- about _that_- but what's even scarier is- what if we _don't_? I mean, you know how much we fight. You've seen more of it than anybody. And what if we break up? I don't- I don't know if I could handle that. It's like I'll be scared to say anything, 'cause I never know what's going to set her off, and then things'll get out of hand, and then… what if I lose her?"

This time the silence was a thoughtful one. It seemed like there ought to be something Harry could say on this one. Then it occurred to him. "I think-"

"Yeah?"

"I think… I think you should just be the old Ron Weasley, and see what happens."

"But you _know_ how that always makes us fight. Like cats and dogs, we are. _Harry_, I've spent _fifteen days_hating myself for everything I've ever said to Hermione, and you're telling me to go back to that?"

"But isn't that what she likes about you?"

Ron looked puzzled. Harry continued.

"What I'm thinking is, if you start trying to be all polite and Hufflepuffy and everything, maybe you won't fight as much, but it'll take away everything that she liked you for in the first place. And- well, then it won't be so much fun for me either."

Ron appeared to consider the idea. "Yeah… well, yeah, maybe."

"So anyway, you were saying something about what your Dad was telling you?"

"Oh, yeah. Well, after he drops _that_one on me, then he says to remember that we don't have to take the relationship any farther than we're both comfortable with, like kissing or… anything, and that I shouldn't pressure her into anything or let her pressure me into anything either. He said that if we were still together we could get engaged after sixth year and then get married after we graduate, and that if we took the relationship too fast at first we might get bored with each other, so if we really liked each other and wanted to stay together we should probably take things nice and slow."

Harry had never thought about things that way. "I wonder if that's true."

"I dunno. Worked for him, though, didn't it? I mean, after all, there's seven of us."

Harry and Ron both laughed softly at the idea. Somehow the thought of Arthur and Molly Weasley as romantic lovers seemed a bit ridiculous, but the existence of Ron and his six siblings suggested that _something_must have happened. It was just weird to think of adults like Mr. and Mrs. Weasley that way.

"And so," Ron continued, "I don't know. We haven't really gotten to talk about, you know, serious stuff like that. Maybe we'll start kissing a year from now, so then it would be another year till we can get engaged. Or maybe the first one will be at the Yule Ball. That'd be funny, wouldn't it? It's just… well, it seems like it would be really nice, but I don't know if I'm ready for it just yet." He paused. "Listen to me. I'm talking like I'm grown up. Never would have thought it. I guess this'll do strange things to you."

Ron paused again.

"But I like it anyway. I _really_ like it." Something gleamed in Ron's eyes. "I recommend it. You know, Potter, we've got to find somebody for you. I guess it's really all up with Cho?"

Harry didn't like this turn of the discussion.

"Well… you heard the letter. I think pretty much every girl in the school hates me know. Well, I don't know if Cho hates me, but wasn't that her crying and running for the door when Mr. Malfoy read that? Anyway, I don't fancy her anymore. Really. Seriously. I'm sure of it," he added as Ron looked at him doubtfully.

"Well, okay, if so say so." Ron pondered a moment. "Parvati, then, maybe? She _did_go to the Ball with you, didn't she?"

"Ha. Even if I did like her that way, after I mentioned her in the letter, can you imagine what she'll be like next time I see her?"

"Like she's O.D.'d on Pepperup Potion?" Ron suggested with a half-smirk.

"Yeah, probably, " Harry agreed. "So anyway, I imagine there's not too many girls that'll be lining up for me now. Good thing I won't be a Triwizard Champion and have to take somebody to the Ball this year, I'd be stuck with Moaning Myrtle. And _don't say it,_" he added before Ron could tease him yet again about having a ghost with a crush on him.

"_Harrrry and Myrrrrrtle,_" cooed Ron, while Harry screwed up his face in annoyance and waited for Ron to get done laughing. "Just stay away from my sister, okay?" Ron added.

For some reason, Harry's mind froze. _Not this! Why now? What's Ron going to think?_ Finally he managed to stammer out, "Er… no, not really, don't think you've got anything to worry about. She said after the letter she was over it."

Ron looked at Harry _very_strangely. Just then Ginny's voice came rising through the floor, saying, "Well, come _on,_Hermione, how else do you_expect_me to feel? You heard what he wrote, and now everybody knows about it! Why do boys…" Her voice trailed off into indistinguishability again. Ron and Harry shared a moment of silent laughter.

"And besides," Harry added, "it's like I said in the letter, she's my best friend's sister. I could never like her _that_way, it would be just too weird."_Why is this not sounding convincing? What's happening?_

Suddenly a rather offended look crossed Ron's face. "Hey, wait a minute… you're saying my sister's not _good enough_ for you?"

Harry knotted his eyebrows. Would Ron _never_ be happy with him? "Wait a minute… first you don't want me to like her, but now you're mad if I say I _don't_like her? Tell me what you _want_, okay?"

Ron thought for a moment, tilting his head left and right in an apparent consideration of the alternatives. "I… I don't know, Harry," he finally said. "What I want is… well, it's like… it's like there's this whole new kind of happiness that I've never known about. And of _course_ I want you to be happy, Harry, you're my _friend._And Ginny… well, I want her to be happy too. And so… well…" Ron was obviously thinking hard. "I guess if you'd be happy together, I'd be happy with that." He shrugged. "I can't believe I just said that."

Harry couldn't believe it either. This discussion was getting less and less comfortable, and he felt like he didn't quite understand why.

Mercifully, Mrs. Weasley's voice came piercing through the household. "BREAKFAST!"

"But it's only six-thirty," said Harry, looking at the clock on the wall as the image of Chudley Cannons Seeker Sammy Banks on Ron's wallpaper made a steep dive toward the floor after the Snitch.

"Probably she wants the family to get to eat together before all the guests join in," Ron explained. "Don't worry, Harry, you're considered family here."

Something about what Ron had just said struck both of them, and they looked away from each other. "Well, let's go downstairs, then," said Ron for lack of anything better to say.

They both headed down to the dining room, Harry in the lead. Much to his surprise, he was feeling hungry again. He hurried down the stairs, until suddenly a door opened outward into his path and sent him sprawling. As he got up, he noticed that he had hit the door hard enough to knock the other person down too. And that other person was Ginny Weasley.

Harry and Ginny stared at each other. Ginny was turning bright red, and Harry could feel himself doing the same. Then they both got to their feet and helped each other up. Ron and Hermione seemed to be casting an amused glance at each other. At first Harry found it annoying. But then he saw the humor of it, and allowed himself an embarrassed grin. And so he turned and continued down the staircase. He was looking forward to breakfast. Breakfast with the Weasley family.

_**THE END**_

_A/N: Okay, this really is the end!Hope you enjoyed it._


End file.
